What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Detournement]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

It was very much in the "no chance this gets made" bracket at the time, as I recall. Banned by councils and had the Tories back on full video nasty mode.

That and Kids are the two films that I remember a big fuss about when they came out when I was in high school. 

Neither of them are particularly more graphic than other similar movies of the period but the fact that there is no clear moral message seems to freak people out. 

[Detournement]

3 hours ago, JustOneCornetto said:

Just been watching The Lost Footage which I'd never seen before and going to rewatch Lost Highway as it's the 25th anniversay and is another Lynch classic

I've read that there are loads of cut scenes from Blue Velvet because he was contracted for a two hour film but I don't really want to see them as its perfect as is. 

https://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/index.htm

This site might interest you. It does a shot by shot breakdown of The Return as well as some movies. I read them after each episode when I was rewatching it in January and it gave me a far better understanding of it even if I don't always agree with her. 

[BFTD]

13 minutes ago, Detournement said:

That and Kids are the two films that I remember a big fuss about when they came out when I was in high school. 

Neither of them are particularly more graphic than other similar movies of the period but the fact that there is no clear moral message seems to freak people out. 

The genre of films about tweens getting high and shagging isn't exactly deep, and seems mainly to be populated by Larry Clark. I notice that he later had at least one film flat-out refused classification.

Yeah, it's the lack of a moral message that tends to unite conservatives around film censorship. There are plenty who'll kick up a fuss when something like The Human Centipede comes out, but it only tends to gain traction if there isn't a clear indication that the events aren't acceptable, or of punishment for transgressions.

Because, y'know, there'd be people crashing cars for sexual pleasure otherwise. FACT.

[MSU]

Titane that came out last year was quite reminiscent of Crash, but it's French where that kind of thing is more or less expected rather than stuck on a Daily Mail list. 

[Detournement]

27 minutes ago, BFTD said:

The genre of films about tweens getting high and shagging isn't exactly deep, and seems mainly to be populated by Larry Clark. I notice that he later had at least one film flat-out refused classification.

Yeah, it's the lack of a moral message that tends to unite conservatives around film censorship. There are plenty who'll kick up a fuss when something like The Human Centipede comes out, but it only tends to gain traction if there isn't a clear indication that the events aren't acceptable, or of punishment for transgressions.

Because, y'know, there'd be people crashing cars for sexual pleasure otherwise. FACT.

Basketball Diaries and My Own Private Idaho are two 90s films that I would say are similar to Kids in content but are less controversial because they have an identifiable moral centre. 

It's just as well censorous people are too dumb and lazy to read books because my bookshelves have far more fucked up stuff on them than anything which gets a BBFC rating. Cancelling Thomas Pynchon or Nabokov would involve some hard work. 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Detournement

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

It's just as well censorous people are too dumb and lazy to read books because my bookshelves have far more fucked up stuff on them than anything which gets a BBFC rating. Cancelling Thomas Pynchon or Nabokov would involve some hard work. 

They used to. it's one of the reasons illiteracy wasn't always considered a problem.

Films usurped literature, and have probably been replaced by video games, as being the medium that stupid poor people can't experience without monkey see, monkey do. I presume that's the idea, anyway; you don't tend to see politicians fretting that their dinner party guests might have murdered a few prozzies after a bout of GTA.

[JustOneCornetto]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

I've read that there are loads of cut scenes from Blue Velvet because he was contracted for a two hour film but I don't really want to see them as its perfect as is. 

https://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/index.htm

This site might interest you. It does a shot by shot breakdown of The Return as well as some movies. I read them after each episode when I was rewatching it in January and it gave me a far better understanding of it even if I don't always agree with her. 

Thanks for that, Kubrick, Lynch, Antonioni and Hitchcock are some of my favourite directors so plenty to digest, on first glance at content. Also like to see different takes on The Return, seen a few on youtube, and listened to some podcasts so look forward to reading this breakdown, will watch it again in tandem with what she's saying.

[Detournement]

9 minutes ago, JustOneCornetto said:

Thanks for that, Kubrick, Lynch, Antonioni and Hitchcock 

I got very into Antonioni during lockdown and rewatching Twin Peaks recently there is definitely a lot of references and thematic inspiration from MA. 

This scene immediately made me think of the ending of L'Eclisse.

[MSU]

012 -- Studio 666. Dave Grohl and the other Foo Fighters turn one of their five minute videos into a 100 minute movie as they head to a spooky mansion to record their difficult 10th album. Baggy in places, particularly in the middle and toward the end, but I thought it was pretty funny and gloriously gory. Borrows an awful lot from Evil Dead, Halloween (John Carpenter wrote the score), The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scooby Doo, and that episode of South Park that had Korn in it. Grohl and the band aren't about to win any acting awards but they come across really well, unafraid to poke fun at themselves. Has a hilarious cameo and a brilliant turn by Kerry King out off of off Slayer as an impatient drum tech. 7/10

[Trackdaybob]

The Duke. 

Just back from the cinema this afternoon. 

Based on a true story. Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren both excellent. 

Thoroughly enjoyed it. 9/10

Recommended. 

[BigDoddyKane]

Kimi on HBO. Steven Soderbergh movie. Its walking that line his movies do where you sway between this isnt that good to this is actually quite good as movie goes and then at end think that was not bad at all. They always kinda feel half finished too though maybe thats why i like them they arent overly produced.

 

anyway 6.5 out of 10 and worth a watch. Zoe Kravitiz is as always very good.

[Clown Job]

Crimson Tide (1995)

Drama set aboard a US nuclear submarine 

The Captain (Gene Hackman) and the XO (Denzel Washington) have a disagreement over the decision to launch its nuclear weapons 

Great acting, great drama.

Would recommended 

[MSU]

Had a spare couple of hours so went to see a screening of the five Oscar nominated animated shorts. First time I've been to a screening like that and I'll definitely try and do so again. It was really interesting to see the diversity of the stories and if one didn't hit the mark, there'd be another one along 15 minutes later. Anyway, the movies were:

013 -- Robin Robin. A wee Christmas tale by Aardman Studios about a robin's egg that's saved from a city dump by a family of scavenging mice who raise the bird as one of their own but who later discover it's not quite as good as being unseen as the rodents. Richard E Grant turns up as a helpful magpie and Gillian Anderson gets more money from her Thatcher (deid) impression as an evil cat. It's probably the most traditional story out of the five, and as beautifully animated as you'd expect, but it seems to do less with double the run time of the other nominees. Still, a few chuckles to be had and younger members of the family will get a kick out of it.

014 -- BoxBallet. A Russian short about the relationship between a heavyweight boxer who's a bit of a punchbag for his opponents and a ballerina who falls victim to a scuzzy producer. It's told in a bit of a disjointed fashion and it feels rushed, so it wasn't the pick of the bunch for me. Most interesting, perhaps, is it's setting at the fall of the Soviet Union which then doesn't really end up amounting to much. The animation is a bit on the nose with how it deals with beauty and the beast.

015 -- Affairs of the Art. Beryl is a fifty-something woman who has found a love of art later in life, despite admitting it's been a constant since her childhood. She reflects on her upbringing with her sister, Beverly, who was always more into earthier pursuits and who found fame as a taxidermist to the stars, and how their lives took very different trajectories. Don't know how well the Welsh accents landed with the Midwestern US audience but I thought it was really funny and the hand-drawn animation was gorgeous as we learn more about the addictive personalities who make up this dysfunctional family.

016 -- Beast. When I saw this was made in Chile, I wondered if the days of the Pinochet regime would play a part and it did. Rightly or wrongly, I associate animation with stories for a younger audience but this is about as far removed from that as possible. It's a very adult, very harrowing story that's made all the more chilling by the protagonist having a ceramic doll's head that is utterly emotionless. This combines with the subject matter of torture and murder to produce an incredibly affecting piece of cinema. Has a bit with a dog that I could've done without seeing.

017 -- The Windshield Wipers. A series of vignettes all based around a central question posed by a middle-aged character in a cafe. What is love? The vignettes cover the spectrum from initial attraction through courtship and sex, all the way to death. What is particularly telling is the modern-day means of finding people comes across as disconnection and disassociated as being alone. The animation style looks and feels like it may have been shot traditionally as live-action and then later processed and rendered to appear as animation. I have no idea how else it could be done because the realism is just absolutely on the mark, but it feels a bit cheaty.

And the Oscar goes to ... Beast. (The one I enjoyed most, though, was Affairs of the Art)

[Fullerene]

15 hours ago, Clown Job said:

Crimson Tide (1995)

Drama set aboard a US nuclear submarine 

The Captain (Gene Hackman) and the XO (Denzel Washington) have a disagreement over the decision to launch its nuclear weapons 

Great acting, great drama.

Would recommended 

You don't really need to recommend. 

Gene Hackman is brilliant in almost every film he has been in.

[accies1874]

37. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Torrent

Bought the game so watched the films.

When it gets going between the characters, it's an absolute treat. With these films, it's really just about finding situations for them to be daft in and that mostly works. A lot of the standard actiony stuff is a bit shit but Gunn usually manages to claw things back by cutting to the characters saying something.

One thing that I found distracting was the blend between CGI and practical stuff. "CGI = bad" gets spoken about too much, but there were some occasions here where they moved from an almost completely fake set/props/characters to something a bit more practical and it ended up making both feel fake. It's hard to describe. And another thing...

38. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) - Torrent

... there's something about James Gunn's direction that I found off. There are a lot of pretty pictures in V2 and some in V1 but in the less showy moments it seemed like he didn't have a grasp on where to direct your eyes with colours and stuff which made the images almost blend into one for me a lot of the time. It really fucking annoyed me and I'm sure it won't have that effect on others but it was just often really visually incoherent. That opening that everyone loves also looks like a bad theme park ride - it's honestly awful to look at.

Speaking of incoherent, the plot was a bit messy but like I said it's not about that, it's about the characters. So how are they? Well they're the same as last time but this time with 3x the number of jokes which resulted in a lower joke to laugh ratio for me. I think this was the film that began my descent into disliking Marvel and subsequent Disneyfication which Homecoming postponed, Ragnarok compounded and Justice League and TLJ confirmed.

39. The Beachcomber (1954)* - Talking Pictures TV

Wtf is this lol

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Crouching tiger, hidden dragon.

Complete pish. I turned it off after 30 minutes. The action scenes were shite. 

[Detournement]

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Some Australian school girls and their teacher go missing in the bush. I wasn't sure what to expect but this was excellent and engrossing with an incredible score. 

[BFTD]

12 Angry Men

Complete pish. I turned it off after 30 minutes. The action scenes were shite.

[Fullerene]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

12 Angry Men

Complete pish. I turned it off after 30 minutes. The action scenes were shite.

You gave up too soon.  The car chase is brilliant. 

[54_and_counting]

On 27/02/2022 at 22:26, Clown Job said:

Crimson Tide (1995)

Drama set aboard a US nuclear submarine 

The Captain (Gene Hackman) and the XO (Denzel Washington) have a disagreement over the decision to launch its nuclear weapons 

Great acting, great drama.

Would recommended 

Absolutely tremendous film, hackman and denzel play off each other so well, and the rest of the cast isnt too bad either