What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Empty It]

Just back from the cinema seeing Guardians Of The Galaxy 3, genuinely one of the saddest movies I've ever watched at parts.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Kandahar.

Gerard Butler ages like a fine Paisley wine.

6.5

[coprolite]

On 30/05/2023 at 13:09, accies1874 said:

I've not watched the Harry Potter films in years, but your description sounds far more interesting than my memory of this one is. 

Concept v execution innit

If Arnie had had to fight badly designed and even more poorly rendered cgi sabre tooth mermaids then the running man would have been shite too. 

Anyway 

Harry Potter and the half blood Prince

Actually enjoyed this one. Maybe a result of having my expectations lowered but i thought it had a consistent tone, Hogwarts was suitably unnerving and there was some proper dramatic tension with the Snape/ Draco plot. I'm also a sucker for a bleak ending. 

Wouldn't work as a stand alone but as part of a series was quite good. Maybe a bit on the dull side. 

5/10

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1

Deathly boredom more like. Episodic mcguffin quest. 

3/10

 

[Fullerene]

12 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

The Wicker Man (The Final Cut)

Only thing I'm not clear on is why they wrote to Woodward in the first place (he says he was sent a letter addressed to him specifically). Why him? How did they choose him? Who knew him from the island? The Cage version actually explains this, but it's never touched on in the original.

Maybe you didn't spot where it was.

They asked Hamish MacBeth if he knew any virgins and once they got a name they wrote to him.

[Jimmy Shaker]

FAST X

An unrelenting, 135-minute explosion of noise and sound. If nothing else, this film is loud. Really, REALLY fucking loud, almost to the point of distortion. Away from the sound being terrible, the CGI is piss poor in places for a film that cost one third of a billion dollars (sic), and the actual set they built for the favela in Rio looks like they spent one third of a dollar on it. 

There’s no dicking about either, other than a brief recap of the events of whatever the one in Brazil with the safe was, which sets up the pitch for the next two hours, the first of which is set entirely in Rome watching a football-shaped bomb bounce about the place while folk in cars try to get a tower crane to spin at the just the right moment to knock it into the river. And while they succeed, the whole Italian job isn’t even in the top five most ridiculous moments in the film. 

Vin Diesel escapes the shockwave of said bomb just by driving fast, and later makes two helicopters fly into each other using a car and some rope, but only after his own car is dropped out of a plane without incident, onto the bridge previously used in another FandF outing, for reasons unknown. John Cena smuggles a plane onto another plane and flies it out of the plane using vodka. Jason Momoa plays a bad guy that’s spectacularly over the top and a borderline tribute to Jack Sparrow, but if he didn’t play him like that he’d have been lost amid everything else. Charlize Theron kills an entire army. Helen Mirren shows up, but in at least one scene she features in you can’t see her face and it looks very much like they had to redo a shot without her. Jason Statham shows up, then disappears to sit in the stands and wait for Fast XI. Literally just drives off the set and isn’t seen again. Han looked sad. The action is simultaneously spread across Rio, London, Portugal and Antarctica. It’s like Diesel is in one film, Cena another, the B-list are in something else, and Theron and Rodriguez are in their own thing. Only rarely do any of the threads become entangled with others. Everyone gets shot, stabbed, maimed, blown up, shot down, or endures a car crash that would see a normal person spend a year in hospital learning to say their own :censored: name, but I can barely remember seeing blood spilt. A dam is blown up after Diesel drives down it to escape two colliding oil tankers while an explosion chases him, but obvs he survives - or does he? A plane crashes with the B-list on it but just off-screen so are they dead? Who knows. The Rock reappears. THE SUBMARINE REAPPEARS. 

I literally walked out with a sore head and had to sit in the garden in the quiet when I got home. This was a sensory experience and a half. A franchise that’s been at 10 for a long time, turned up to 11. Possibly 12. The plot made sense and yet at the same time the film as a whole made next to no sense, and it exists only to warm folk up for Fast XI. This must be what it feels like to have your first Fanta as a five year old. Intense, with a feeling of uncertainty as to whether it’s a good thing or not. 

A quite strange experience, truth be told.

[KingRocketman II]

2 hours ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

FAST X

An unrelenting, 135-minute explosion of noise and sound. If nothing else, this film is loud. Really, REALLY fucking loud, almost to the point of distortion. Away from the sound being terrible, the CGI is piss poor in places for a film that cost one third of a billion dollars (sic), and the actual set they built for the favela in Rio looks like they spent one third of a dollar on it. 

There’s no dicking about either, other than a brief recap of the events of whatever the one in Brazil with the safe was, which sets up the pitch for the next two hours, the first of which is set entirely in Rome watching a football-shaped bomb bounce about the place while folk in cars try to get a tower crane to spin at the just the right moment to knock it into the river. And while they succeed, the whole Italian job isn’t even in the top five most ridiculous moments in the film. 

Vin Diesel escapes the shockwave of said bomb just by driving fast, and later makes two helicopters fly into each other using a car and some rope, but only after his own car is dropped out of a plane without incident, onto the bridge previously used in another FandF outing, for reasons unknown. John Cena smuggles a plane onto another plane and flies it out of the plane using vodka. Jason Momoa plays a bad guy that’s spectacularly over the top and a borderline tribute to Jack Sparrow, but if he didn’t play him like that he’d have been lost amid everything else. Charlize Theron kills an entire army. Helen Mirren shows up, but in at least one scene she features in you can’t see her face and it looks very much like they had to redo a shot without her. Jason Statham shows up, then disappears to sit in the stands and wait for Fast XI. Literally just drives off the set and isn’t seen again. Han looked sad. The action is simultaneously spread across Rio, London, Portugal and Antarctica. It’s like Diesel is in one film, Cena another, the B-list are in something else, and Theron and Rodriguez are in their own thing. Only rarely do any of the threads become entangled with others. Everyone gets shot, stabbed, maimed, blown up, shot down, or endures a car crash that would see a normal person spend a year in hospital learning to say their own :censored: name, but I can barely remember seeing blood spilt. A dam is blown up after Diesel drives down it to escape two colliding oil tankers while an explosion chases him, but obvs he survives - or does he? A plane crashes with the B-list on it but just off-screen so are they dead? Who knows. The Rock reappears. THE SUBMARINE REAPPEARS. 

I literally walked out with a sore head and had to sit in the garden in the quiet when I got home. This was a sensory experience and a half. A franchise that’s been at 10 for a long time, turned up to 11. Possibly 12. The plot made sense and yet at the same time the film as a whole made next to no sense, and it exists only to warm folk up for Fast XI. This must be what it feels like to have your first Fanta as a five year old. Intense, with a feeling of uncertainty as to whether it’s a good thing or not. 

A quite strange experience, truth be told.

I am of the opinion that the Fast & Furious series of movies has got to be hands down the worst franchise in cinematic history. And inversely more and more popular/profitable. 

I say this as someone who really enjoys action movies - of course I prefer them to be well done with sharp original dialogue but I do not believe off the various FF movies I have seen, there is one positive thing that could be said for them. Even the old "you know what you are going to get/it's not Ingmar Bergman but good for switching your brain off for 2-3 hours" apologetic nonsense doesn't stand up when applied to these movies. 

 

[Jimmy Shaker]

The odd thing with the series - or at least the latest one - is if even if you think you know what you're going to get, you're still left open-mouthed at some of what's happening. I certainly was, and I've seen them all, most of them on the big screen as nature intended, and I still came away last night thinking 'what the f**k did I just see'. 

I dunno if I'm too old for this kind of thing, and I say that as someone quite content to watch stuff blowing up for any length of time. Problem with Fast X is it's literally just stuff happening constantly. There's no let-up. It is just relentless. Even in the likes of Terminator 2, Aliens, Speed, etc., there's brief moments of quiet, or scripted conversation to lead into a set piece, or just someone driving in silence or two folk speaking on a bus or something, anything. Fast X announces a scene change by having something explode. 

A third of a billion dollars to make that.

[accies1874]

21. Reality - Cinema

I knew literally nothing about this, so when it revealed early on that the dialogue was taken entirely from the transcript of the depicted interrogation, my interest was pique - and that's by far the most interesting part of a film that I really enjoyed. 

My take on that 'gimmick' is that it made me invest in almost every aspect other than the dialogue. Authentic, pre-determined dialogue means that there's not gonna be any subtext as no normal human being speaks in subtext, so that means that those involved need to find it in other places: the performances, the score and the rhythm of scenes were the aspects that stood out to me. I often found myself ignoring what characters were saying and instead focusing on how they were saying it, which is especially crucial early on where there's a mystery - for those like me who weren't aware of the details of the true story - as to what's bubbling underneath and who knows more than they're letting on (everyone!). The mystery then becomes more focused on the Why than the What but still retains everything that made it interesting in the first place. Obviously every single film goes through the thought process of layering in subtext through different means, but I just think that the self-imposed restrictions on the script meant that there was a unique layer of thought required. I suppose it's quite like how plays adapt existing plays as I believe their scripts tend to stay the same and find other ways of setting their own production apart. Speaking of plays, I actually wouldn't have initially guessed that this was an adaptation of one, but when they referenced it in the closing credits a couple of things did come to mind retrospectively that became a bit more naff. 

I liked Reality as a character which, again, is testament to the performance. She's appropriately and mysteriously reserved early on, but I found myself understanding her paranoia as the interrogation continued and the agents tried to peel back what seemed like slightly unusual but completely innocuous habits. I was thinking that almost everyone has idiosyncrasies when it comes to performing mundane tasks and picking them apart will inevitably lead to suspicion when you're face with people scouring for suspicious acts. By the end, I realised that the entire film was dedicated to humanising that political boogeyman which in turn brings attention to the fallacy of freedom.  

[coprolite]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2

Young Skywalker has completed his training and rejoins the rebels to see off the forces of evil, complete with ghostly mentors and colour coded light weapons. 

Actually a pretty decent end to the series even if the various plot twists don't actually make sense. 

6/10

Overall, as big budget series for kids go, not as good as Star Wars but better than Lord of the Rings. 

 

[MSU]

113 Top Secret -- Doesn't quite have the same joke per minute rate as Airplane, or probably Naked Gun, but with the space this affords it, instead it has something pretty close to a plot. It's from the mid-80s so of course some of it doesn't feel entirely comfortable in the 21st century, but there's plenty that still hits the mark; the cow in wellies, the singing horse, the definition of indispensable, and, of course, Skeet Surfin'. 7/10

114 Airplane II: The Sequel -- Essentially a carbon copy of the first movie that even has chunks of it repeated, but not as good. That said, it still has more jokes than most comedies and a decent proportion of them land about as well as they did 40 years ago. I still don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande. 6/10

115 The House -- It's a guilty pleasure of mine, and I can understand why some people don't like, even hate this movie, but I kinda love it. There's a background storyline about financing a kid's college tuition and something about corruption in small-town local government, but really, it's just an excuse to build jokes on the framework of the question, "What would happen if we had a casino in our house?" A lot of the jokes land, some of them are wrung out a bit too much, and some just totally miss the mark but overall, I love the premise and I really enjoy the trio of Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and Jason Mantzoukas and their collection of oddball neighbors. The stand-up comedian and the fight club scenes, as well as The Butcher, will never not make me laugh. A sorry-not-sorry 7/10

116 Fletch -- Last year's Confess, Fletch made me think back to the original movies from the 80s and if I'm honest, I suspected that Chevy Chase's wise-cracking investigative reporter character and his ways probably hadn't aged all that well. Surprise surprise, then, to discover that Fletch, for the most part, is as good now as it was almost 40 years ago. Posing as a junkie, Fletch is investigating a drug ring on a public LA beach when he's approached by millionaire Alan Stanwyk who claims to be dying and wants Fletch to kill him so his family can pick up the insurance. There's obviously more to it than it seems but Andrew Bergman's script, based on a novel Gregory McDonald's novel, has enormous fun as these two threads slowly come together. There are a few plot points that jar -- Alan Stanwyk claims to have been watching Fletch on the beach for two weeks and then suddenly just stops his surveillance, and does every woman have to throw themselves at his feet -- but this was a hugely entertaining rewatch, and Chevy Chase has rarely been so good. 8/10

117 Fletch Lives -- Ah, so *this* was the Fletch movie I was worried hadn't aged well. Yeah, it hasn't. Fletch Lives, perhaps ill-advisedly, breaks away from the Gregory McDonald novels to go on an original adventure where the stereotypes do most of the writing. Fletch is disillusioned with working on the newspaper with Frank when he learns that his aunt has died and left him with her mansion and 80 acres, so he ups sticks to Louisiana. The mansion isn't the palace he'd imagined, the local evangelical theme park is looking to expand into his property, and his poor realtor sleeps with him then winds up dead leaving him as the prime suspect. There are laughs to be had, I guess, but Fletch punches down quite a bit, and a bit of that goes in the direction of Cleavon Little's Calculus Entropy, his aunt's housekeeper and slave descendent, although everyone seems keen to avoid investigating that aspect of the story too much. There's something about the Fletch character and Chevy Chase's portrayal that I can't help but enjoy, but as a sequel, and compared so closely to the first movie, it's impossible not to be disappointed, and in the four years in between, it really should've been much better. 4/10

118 The Boogeyman -- Teenage Sadie and her younger sister Sawyer, try to deal with the death of their mother while their distant therapist dad, Will, is somewhat present. For a therapist, Will doesn't really even try to help his kids through this trauma, passing them on to a colleague, but when a mysterious man comes for an unplanned session, he brings with him an evil entity that threatens to destroy what remains of Will's family. In keeping with every decent monster flick, Rob Savage wisely keeps the monster lingering in the shadows as much as possible and I was reminded of Skinamarink at several points where I wasn't even sure if what I could see at the edge of perceivable vision was a shape or just my eyes playing tricks on me. And in this regard, the monster has lucked out because the family house here seems to have been furnished with 20 watt lightbulbs so plenty of shadows are created. There are many moments where its PG13 rating feels like a terrible error, 15 in the UK feels far closer to the right call. Sophie Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair are great as the kids and while Chris Messina puts in a good shift as Will, he's a kinda frustrating character and it's hard to warm to him. The script, though, based on a 50-year-old Stephen King short, is sharp and fleshes the characters out well, even if it does take itself very seriously. I suspect this will fly under the radar for lots of people thanks to the competition this weekend, which is a shame. It's worth checking out. 6/10

[Ludo*1]

Went to see this at the Odeon tonight:

 

Trailer shows a bit much but fucking tremendous fun. Like if Quentin Tarantino did one of his war type films as an 80s action film just full of unrealistic nonsense, gore and a cracking wee story.

Awesome.

[Frankie S]

#45 Caveat (Damian McCarthy, 2020) Shudder via Amazon Prime 8

A dark, claustrophobic and disturbing low budget Irish horror film, set in a remote house on an island, that starts with a memorably chilling prelude, then slowly ratchets things up from there. If you accept the contrived premise, and disregard the illogical plot twists, then this is an entertaining if slightly clunky ride, a bit like a rickety old ghost train that’s no longer safe for use. All things considered, ‘Caveat’ is a highly promising directorial debut for Damian McCarthy.

#46 The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976) Amazon Prime 8

The third in Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’, this isn’t in the same league as ‘Repulsion’ or ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, but it held my attention nonetheless. Director Polanski plays the protagonist, Trelkovsky, who moves into a new apartment in Paris, shortly after the previous occupant’s suicide. Trelkovsky’s descent into madness is too sudden to be thoroughly convincing, and the English language version available on Amazon Prime features some bad dubbing of the largely French cast, but despite these issues, it’s an enjoyable mix of psychological horror and black comedy.

#47 The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978) Criterion Channel 8

Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski has been lauded for his recent film ‘EO’, so I thought I’d check out his back catalogue. ‘The Shout’’s plot is utterly implausible, but it’s an entertainingly eccentric collision of folk horror and psychological thriller. Alan Bates’ character Crossley, a mysterious traveller who claims to have learned magical spells from aboriginal shamen in the Australian outback, infiltrates a genteel English village community, and the home of church organist / experimental music composer Anthony Fielding (John Hurt) and his wife Rachel (Susannah York), with predictably dire consequences for all concerned. 

#48 Guardians of the Galaxy Pt 3 (James Gunn, 2023) Everyman Cinema, St James Quarter 4

The original ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is a guilty pleasure of mine: a refreshingly witty, sharply-scripted, fun antidote to the often absurdly po-faced superhero films churned out by both Marvel and DC to that point, and the killer soundtrack clinched the deal. Even if GoTG 2 didn’t quite reproduce the original’s magic, it had just enough charm to get a pass. 

GoTG 3 is even worse than I feared it might be. Everything that made the original so great is absent here: the lightness of touch, the quicksilver wit, the playful irreverence, and the choice collection of great tunes.

By contrast, Volume 3 is bombastic, crude and charmless…. and the soundtrack sucks too. We’re ‘treated’ to the strident rock of Rainbow, Heart, Alice Cooper and Bruce Springsteen rather than yacht rock gems from the likes of Rupert Holmes and Blue Swede and soulful cuts from The Five Stairsteps and Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell. (Vol. 2’s mix is more uneven, but still includes a few highlights - Looking Glass, Parliament, Sam Cooke etc.). One of the original film’s stand-out tunes, Redbone’s ‘Come and Get Your Love’, makes a reappearance at the end of Vol. 3, reinforcing just how dismally unimaginative this instalment’s musical selection is. In short, Vol 1’s mixtape sounds like it was lovingly assembled by someone that actually likes music, whereas Vol.3’s sounds like it was hastily cobbled together by an accountant, which is more or less the film’s problems in microcosm. 

Vol.3 has been assembled with one eye on the bottom line, but it’s a Frankenstein of a film manufactured from ill-fitting parts, including a lengthy anti-vivisection section (Rocket’s backstory), which while rather effectively done, sits uneasily alongside the fluff surrounding it, which I’ll (charitably) summarise as a witless procession of inane wisecracks and pointless explosions masquerading as a movie.

I had hoped that GoTG 3 might revive my flagging interest in the MCU, after slogging my way through the utterly dismal Phase IV, but the first two instalments of Phase V (this and the worst Ant-Man film to date - ‘Quantumania’) merely confirm the franchise’s continuing decline.

#49 Performance (Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg, 1970) 9

I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen this before, and I’m conscious that I’m decades late to the party here. Nicolas Roeg is one of my favourite directors (‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘Eureka’ are amongst my favourite films), and Edinburgh-born painter, screenwriter and director Donald Cammell is (IMO) one of the most fascinating filmmakers that Scotland has ever produced. I really enjoyed Cammell’s ‘White of the Eye’ and ‘Wild Style’, even though they’re both flawed and uneven films, but ‘Performance’ is something else entirely.

It’s fair to say that Cammell was a maverick (a bohemian portrait painter, whose father had written a biography of Aleister Crowley), but he possessed more innate filmmaking talent than many more lauded directors.

It’s not difficult to see why ‘Performance’ caused such a stir upon its release in 1970. Part gangster film (Edward Fox has never been better, playing against type, as Cockney criminal Chas), and part requiem for an era, as the swinging sixties morphed into something more sinister. The result is pleasingly sui generis - a trippy Brit noir rock horror film.

The editing, sound, and particularly the radical cut-up style, presumably influenced by William S. Burroughs, still seem experimental today. ‘Performance’ is a remarkable collision of styles, moods, sounds and images, transgressive and at times almost demonic, with the Rolling Stones song ‘Memo from Turner’ interrupting proceedings like a proto rock video made more than a decade before MTV was born.

It’s impossible to estimate just how innovative this film was, or to calibrate the relative contributions of the co-directors (though the idea and the script were both Cammell’s, and cameraman Roeg was brought in by the studio to help first-time director Cammell deliver the film), but the aftershocks of ‘Performance’ still resonate in Roeg’s later career (‘Don’t Look Now’ in particular), and filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino (and lesser talents such as Guy Ritchie) were clearly influenced by this film.

If pressed to find fault, the first half is stronger than the second, and the momentum  flags when Chas holes up in Turner(Mick Jagger)’s Notting Hill townhouse, but ‘Performance’ is one of the best and most influential British films of the 1970s.

#50 Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kamel, 1971) Criterion Channel 8

Something of an anomaly, this film’s Hammer Horror meets European art cinema atmosphere is surprisingly entrancing, and the presence of ‘Last Year at Marienbad’’s Delphine Seyrig as mysterious Hungarian aristocrat Countess Elizabeth Bathory adds another alluring layer of glamour to the proceedings. Set in a deserted hotel in Ostend during the off season, ‘Daughters of Darkness’ not only resonates with distant echoes of (the admittedly vastly superior) ‘Marienbad’, but it also foreshadows ‘The Shining’, released almost a decade later. It’s no masterpiece, but I found ‘Daughters of Darkness’ to be a thoroughly enjoyable exercise in highly-stylised (and tolerably camp) horror.

#51 Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014) Netflix 9

Having seen this at the time of release, this was a rewatch. Although clearly owing a huge debt to Scorsese’s (admittedly superior) studies of psychopathic loners, ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The King of Comedy’, Dan Gilroy’s ‘Nightcrawler’ stands the test of time as one of the great Hollywood neo-noirs of the 21st century so far. 

Jake Gyllenhaal is outstanding as creepy, amoral ambulance-chasing photojournalist Lou Bloom, a misfit whose disconcerting speaking-in-tongues conversational style - a patchwork of inane ‘How to Succeed in Business’ homilies and tactlessly reductive transactionalism - lend him the air of a demented capitalist evangelist, a preacher from the sleazy flip side of the American Dream. 

As a coruscating satire of capitalism, ‘Nightcrawler’ is much darker and harder-hitting than ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, and Gyllenhaal’s Bloom is a more repellently dysfunctional poster boy for the American Nightmare than even DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort. 

Apparently director Gilroy originally intended the film to be a study of street photojournalist Weegee (whose austere black and white studies of crime scenes on the streets of New York in the ‘30s and ‘40s made him the most noirish of photographers), before it morphed into ‘Nightcrawler’, but Weegee’s influence is clear, and the film’s scenes of Los Angeles at night are luminously rendered by cinematographer Robert Elswit - a transfixing tableau of death and destruction illuminated by street lights, car headlights, and Bloom’s camera’s merciless spotlight.

52# Huesera: The Bone Woman (Michelle Garza Cervera, 2022) Shudder via Amazon Prime 8

A highly promising debut from young Mexican writer-director Michelle Garza Cervera, one of many talented young women filmmakers making a mark in the horror genre at the moment. I look forward to seeing what she does next.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Frankie S

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Greenland 2020.

7/10

A comet hits the earth, wiping out mankind and your chosen to repopulate it with Morena Baccarin. Would you Adam and Eve it?

That’s not the plot of this movie but it is a w**k I had.

[MSU]

119 Carmen -- This version of Carmen has little in common with Bizet's opera. Rather than a tale of obsession and jealousy in Spain, it's transported to be a story of escape and renewal set in the borderlands between Mexico and the US. Melissa Barrera, who we remember from the recent Scream sequels, is captivating in the lead role. Carmen's mother is murdered by, we assume, a Mexican drugs cartel, and she flees across the border into the US. There she runs into Paul Mescal, whose American accent is so good, I forgot he was Scottish for a moment, before further forgetting that he's actually Irish. He's Aidan, an Afghan vet running away from his own demons. He's working Border Patrol and one of his colleagues gets a little trigger-happy. Aidan intervenes, the colleague is killed, and he and Carmen join forces as they flee to Los Angeles. The story isn't much heavier than that, but where it veers away from the expected is in its use of dance. The movie's director, Benjamin Millepied, is a choreographer and his film is punctuated with expressive dance that ranges from the balletic to the flamenco dancing of Carmen's mother in the breathtaking opening sequence. It's all very impressive, even from Mescal who has a dancing background. I don't know if he seemed less accomplished just from the skill of the people around him, particularly Barrera, but he did give me the vibe at times of a celebrity on Strictly Come Dancing who probably gets voted out in week six. Honestly, I preferred his dancing in Aftersun. The cinematography is amazing, as is the score, I just wish the story had a bit more going for it. It feels quite thick and oddly stationary at times, and even when it does get moving, it's brief and quite surface-level, and that's going to be a bit of a problem for a two-hour movie. Still pretty decent. 7/10

120 ¡Three Amigos! -- Kurosawa's Seven Samurai premise has never been redone with a Singing Bush before or since. The trio of Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin are, at times, hilarious and genuinely engaging enough throughout as the mercenaries hired to come to the aid of lowly villagers in dealing with an evil warlord. But for a story so formulaic and predictable, it's just not funny enough and the chemistry between the three seems to work better in some places than others, and oftentimes they're at their best when operating on their own. Contrary to this is the aforementioned Singing Bush scene, and the campfire song with the accompanying animals. A few quotable lines aside, Alfonso Arau and Tony Plana as the dastardly El Guapo and Jefe are frequently the funniest things in the movie, but at least it manages to avoid feeling too much like an extended SNL skit, which can't always be said for something Lorne Michaels is involved in. 6/10

121 The Jerk -- I don't know that Steve Martin has ever been funnier than he was here. It's quite an uneven watch and there are sections where the jokes are flying and landing hard and fast and then there'll be long spells where nothing is even really even meant to be funny. However, the movie has an abundance of heart and (I think) good intentions. There may be few scenes in cinema more adorable than Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters singing Tonight You Belong To Me, or a dog called Shithead. 8/10

122 Dreams of a Life -- Carol Morely's documentary about the life and death of Joyce Vincent, who lay undiscovered in her London bedsit for three years, was seemingly made without the involvement or blessing of Vincent's family. Instead, Morely relies on Vincent's friends and co-workers in the years leading up to her death and they all paint a picture of a charming, attractive, successful and intriguing individual, someone who had, at least briefly, been part of circles that included Gil Scott Heron and Ben E King, which makes her fate all the more intriguing. The documentary uses actors to reconstruct scenes from her life that may or may not have happened and this disconnect, while unavoidable due to the lack of concrete details, simply accentuates its own shortcomings. Surprisingly, it spends very little time asking why she wasn't missed by friends or family, or how a soul can disappear in the middle of one of the busiest cities on earth, or how protective services can let someone down so badly. 6/10

123 Transformers: Rise of the Beasts -- I had successfully navigated 49 trips around the sun without seeing a Transformer movie or accumulating any real information on the matter other than Michael Bay is creepy, and these robots can turn into cars for a reason that may or may not have been explained at some point. If there had been ANYTHING ELSE new in the cinema this week, this run would've been extended. The plot, such as it is, is about an important thing that will allow something to happen that might be good or might be bad depending on which color of eyes the possessing robot has. Half of that thing has been found in a New York museum which brings the two humans who give a shit about any of this stuff together. Anthony Ramos is Noah, who has been tasked to steal a car that's been parked in the museum for reasons. Dominique Fishback is Elana who works at the museum and is underappreciated and she's the one who finds the thing. Upon discovering alien robots that can turn into cars and stuff, neither of them seem remotely fazed by the experience so they all go to Peru where a number of UNESCO world heritage sites will be destroyed, and I will be encouraged to feel an emotional connection to a dead robot. I have no idea if this finished product is anything like director Steven Caple Jr's vision -- although I've seen Creed II so I can guess -- and I can't estimate the joy any of the five writers experienced while hearing their overly earnest words brought to life. It's hard to imagine that any of them thought their efforts represented time well spent. 2/10

[54_and_counting]

@Frankie S

Think you missed the point about "come and get your love" being the last song of guardians 3

For the audience it was the way to tie up the guardians arc as we started it, quill stops running away, gamora finds her place in the universe again, nebula and drax find the family they wanted/lost

But as for Rocket choosing the song, it was almost a way to honour his best friend (along with groot) the one who done whatever it took to save his life, it was one of quills favourite songs and rocket adopted it as a honourable memory of his friend

[KingRocketman II]

On 11/06/2023 at 23:27, MSU said:

 

123 Transformers: Rise of the Beasts -- I had successfully navigated 49 trips around the sun without seeing a Transformer movie or accumulating any real information on the matter other than Michael Bay is creepy, and these robots can turn into cars for a reason that may or may not have been explained at some point. If there had been ANYTHING ELSE new in the cinema this week, this run would've been extended. The plot, such as it is, is about an important thing that will allow something to happen that might be good or might be bad depending on which color of eyes the possessing robot has. Half of that thing has been found in a New York museum which brings the two humans who give a shit about any of this stuff together. Anthony Ramos is Noah, who has been tasked to steal a car that's been parked in the museum for reasons. Dominique Fishback is Elana who works at the museum and is underappreciated and she's the one who finds the thing. Upon discovering alien robots that can turn into cars and stuff, neither of them seem remotely fazed by the experience so they all go to Peru where a number of UNESCO world heritage sites will be destroyed, and I will be encouraged to feel an emotional connection to a dead robot. I have no idea if this finished product is anything like director Steven Caple Jr's vision -- although I've seen Creed II so I can guess -- and I can't estimate the joy any of the five writers experienced while hearing their overly earnest words brought to life. It's hard to imagine that any of them thought their efforts represented time well spent. 2/10

We should add "and why?" to the title of this thread : ))

This point here (and this is not a dig at you - as I enjoy your reviews - but it reminded me of one of my peeves) highlights how I enjoy the more "discerning" of move-goers (usually emailing into say Mayo and Kermode's movie podcast) tying themselves up in knots and coming up with a completely implausible reason as to why they paid good money and sat through the latest god-awful blockbuster. 

Anyway, the very first Bay Transformers film was fantastic. Overlook some lewd shots of Megan Fox and the movie completely stands up and is built around a boy and his car. It had a simple plot, was funny, great action sequences, fantastic soundtrack (which hasn't been replicated in any of the other movies) and the freshness of the Autobots/Decepticon appearances, with Optimus standing out in his cartoon heroic form (helped by bringing Cullen back on board to voice). I'll die on this (review) hill!. 8/10

Every other Transformer movie that followed with the exception of Bumblebee (which is almost a retread of Transformers) is an absolute boring mess that do not capture a semblance of the merits of the first movie. As a result and despite a few attempts I I have not seen them all in their entirety and tbh I couldn't tell one apart from the other apart. I haven't seen RotB yet and am in two minds as to whether to do so as it is marketed as a sequel to Bumblebee and I did like the director's Creed II (though they missed a trick by not entirely focusing on Ivan Drago's story in that. I digress) - however the reviews are mixed/not great, yours included. 

[JustOneCornetto]

(40) Monsieur Lazhar (2011) – DVD

A French-Canadian film about a primary school teacher who is hired after a much loved teacher dies in tragic circumstances. It’s a well-trodden plot about an inspirational teacher but it has a bit more about it as Mr Lazhar is dealing with his own problems but is able to eke out the emotions and feelings of the young children. Have to say the kids are all pretty good and it was an enjoyable watch. 7/10

 (41) Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) – Talking Pictures

Peter Weir has made some great films and this is up there with the best of them. Very much my type of film, ethereal, full of mystery and symbolism. You get that sense straight away when you are told that the event happened on Valentine’s Day 1900 when a bunch of schoolgirls from a fee-paying school head out for an afternoon picnic. Three of them and one teacher somehow go missing and despite all the efforts are never found. This is one of those films you can watch over and over and come to a different conclusion in your own mind each time. 8.5/10

 (42) M (1931) – Youtube

Always a bit wary that the film quality, especially one from over 90 years ago, is going to be crap, but have to say it was excellent. This is a real classic and very much a landmark film in the history of film. Fritz Lang started making films as part of the German Expressionism but this one in particular developed the new genre of Film Noir. Peter Lorre is a child murderer at large and when the police seem to be getting nowhere the criminal underworld gang together to plan on catching him and dishing out their own form of justice. Lorre always looks creepy with his bulging eyes and his performance, as he pleads for forgiveness, is outstanding. Really recommend this to anyone who loves film noir. 9/10

[MSU]

1 hour ago, KingRocketman II said:

This point here (and this is not a dig at you - as I enjoy your reviews - but it reminded me of one of my peeves) highlights how I enjoy the more "discerning" of move-goers (usually emailing into say Mayo and Kermode's movie podcast) tying themselves up in knots and coming up with a completely implausible reason as to why they paid good money and sat through the latest god-awful blockbuster. 

That's fair, and I can be a snob with some franchises while absolutely and willfully ignoring the shortcomings of others. I definitely went into this with lowered expectations. Mrs MSU who has more of a connection to Transformers, although mostly the cartoon when she was a kid and through Bumblebee, enjoyed it more than I did but still came out of it fairly non-plussed, and the wee laddie that was sitting next to us in the packed IMAX screening somehow fell asleep. I dunno if I could recommend it, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it if you do go see it.

[Mark Connolly]

The Flash

Spoiler

Been a long time since I walked away from a DC movie thinking "I really enjoyed that". They generally promise much but fail to deliver, but this is properly enjoyable.

A sort of take on The Flashpoint Paradox, with some good cameos, including a few that you never saw coming. Ezra Miller may be a fucking oddball, but they are excellent as Barry, while Keaton proves once again that he is the best Batman.

It would be a surprise if this wasn't the end of the "Snyderverse", but at least it finally got a decent film.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Transformers (2007)

Stupid, ugly, obnoxious and incomprehensible. Shia LaBeouf was all of these things and was by far the only tolerable thing in the movie.