What films have you watched recently?

Philly_Q

Philly_Q said:

Offset said:

^^ Thanks Phil.  I can't let your 90 minutes of audiovisual suffering go unacknowledged.

It would be a tough call between a single viewing of Oppenheimer or watching Butt Boy twice over.

I haven't seen Oppenheimer, by the way, so that was just a gratuitous flippant comment.  I don't expect I'll ever watch it, it doesn't appeal.

rze99

Devil#20 said:

rze99 said:

School for Scoundrels
iPlayer 1960
Classic Ealing! It's a time travel joy.
Kind-hearted but weak-willed Henry Palfrey is cheated and abused by car salesmen, a head waiter, an upper-class cad and his employees. When charming April Smith is stolen away from him, Henry takes drastic action and enrols in the College of Lifemanship, run by Mr Potter, where he can learn to beat others in life.
Terry Thomas and Ian Carmichael.
Cad. Bounder. Shower. What ho old chap!

Excellently played and still engaging.

8/10

Oh and a lurverly Aston Martin DB3S 

That's a brilliant film. My only criticism is why they called the Aston Martin DB3S a Bellini in the film. Could have preceded the Bond Films to promote the marque. Therefore I give it 8/10 for the film but it gets another point for Alistair Simms untrimmed ear hair. Watch when he looks into the camera for the aside at the end of the film. Most impressive. Like a couple of ear muffs. 

Incidentally, Aston Martin were quite clever getting the Aston Martin into the Bond films. They parked it up outside the studios and removed the Aston Martin badges and waited until the producers asked what it was. That was their in". Maybe they did the same here. 

see here:
https://supercarnostalgia.com/blog/aston-martin-db3s-school-for-scoundrels-bellini

robgilmo

Brio said:

Nah. Just had a total failure of any basic commonsense/decency.
Sorry Rob.

Thats Ok buddy, dont worry, it might not be historically accurate ,I did think it a good watch though. I will look out for the docu.

robgilmo

Monolith.
I watched this last night, brilliant story, not much action but still watchable.

Haych

50 First Dates (Netflix)

One of Adam Sandler's better movies.  Seen it many times before but not for a couple of years.  Mrs Haych wanted something easy watching while we had dinner so we put this on and it didn't disappoint.

Still as charming and funny as the first time I watched it, and quite a decent story for what it's worth.

Oh, and I never noticed the easter egg in the middle referencing another of my favourite comedy movies.  Mind blown!

10/10 not sorry.

DesVegas

Offset said:

^^ Weird the way Oppenheimer divides opinion... 

You could say, it splits it??!

57Deluxe

can't remember - I fall asleep usually around the second round of Ads... Film4 will be repeating them all endlessly next week again so no worries...

goldtop

Let It Snow (iPlayer) Georgian revenge movie. Total rubbish, not a single believable character, nor a single well-directed scene. 0/10

Aftersun (iPlayer) Divorced dad takes 11yo daughter on a holiday of a lifetime. Very poignant, superb acting and direction. You don't quite know where it's going, but the ending leaves you in no doubt. 9/10

rze99

Unsane
iPlayer

Shot on iPhone - actually it works - features a young lady (Claire Foy) whose on-edge life rapidly deteriorates into a fight to escape enforced mental health detention. It's a bit of a confused mess to be honest, essentially it's a stalker movie with a major riff around US private medical insurance racket.

Watchable but not really very credible.

5/10

rze99

Blue Hawaii
BBC iPlayer

Ludicous and tame Elvis vehicle which is just a vicarious holiday.

Elvis.. sorry the character "Chad",  returns to Hawaii after two years in the army (get it) but doesn't want to work for his Dad's Pineapple juice business (hey what a rebel) so he has a go at being a tourist guide and ends up surrounded by beautiful women and girls much to the chagrin of his girlfriend. Angela Lansbury steals the show as his possessive, ambitious and nuts Mum who is convinced Elvis has been in a war.

Gorgeous-looking restoration, silly nonsense with truly terrible cheesy songs. A lovely MG.  Hawaii looks amazing. I loved it!

8/10

 

Shrews

Notorious

Gosh, how lovely was Ingrid Bergman? Stole every scene she was in. As for the film, I love a bit of Hitchcock and this spy tale keeps the interest from start to finish, even if it's a bit of a dull ending.

But with Ingrid in it, who cares? 8/10


The History Boys

Well, I was a grammar school pupil from that era and found the whole tale improbable. Improbable dialogue, improbable students, improbable scenes, improbable story. The French lesson scene ridiculous. No kid I knew ever behaved like that and no doubt would have been punched if he did.  The only thing probable was Richard Griffiths as a fondling homosexual teacher who liked touching up his boys (actually 18yo men) on the back of his motorbike. 

Apparently his character of Hector was controversial but our school certainly had a similar character who was similarly seen as a bit of a joke rather than a serious concern (which of course he was, but back then times were different).

I saw this as a play at Birmingham Hippodrome and it was dire. This film was better, but still...

4.5/10 (many of the cast became characters in Gavin and Stacey. Not sure if they went to Oxford)

rze99

The Girl with a Bracelet

Film 4

In French

A beautiful but oddly diffident French teenager is charged with killing her best friend after a party. How can she be understood by the jury or her family if she reveals so little and offers no insight into her life or her relationship with the deceased?

It is a measured, thoughtful, subtle and psychologically interesting trial procedural, asking questions about what we expect a murderer or indeed an innocent girl to display when facing court.

Interesting and nicely played all round, but dissatisfying.

6/10

Philly_Q

Ok, let's lower the tone with some ropey horror movies I've watched in the last week or so...

The Son (Shudder)
A heavily-pregnant woman escapes from a religious cult... nine years later she's living quietly under an assumed name, but her son is suddenly struck with a mysterious illness, and it seems only one thing will keep him alive...  The plot here is familiar stuff, but it's pretty well done although it plays more like a psychological thriller than a supernatural horror.  Reliable mid-budget star Emile Hirsch is pretty good as a sympathetic cop.

Hunted (Shudder)
A woman working in a strange town visits a bar where she unwisely hooks up with a stranger... the man and his accomplice let the woman out of their car, but then proceed to chase her through the forest.  This Belgian/French/Irish co-production has very striking cinematography - the woman's red jacket and blonde hair always stand out glowingly against the misty greens and browns of the forest.  There's definitely a Red Riding Hood thing going on, although it hardly sticks to the story.  This is not amazing, but it goes pleasingly bonkers at the end.

8 Found Dead (Paramount+)
Two young-ish couples rent a house in the California desert for the weekend, but when they arrive - at separate times - they find an eccentric, slightly unnerving older couple are already in residence.  This is short, and passes by very quickly without leaving much of an impression.  The title kind of tells you where the story's heading, but really it's mostly talking.  Probably best not to bother.

Penance Lane (Amazon Prime)
An ex-con going by the unlikely name of Crimson Matthews takes a job looking after an empty house in a small town.  He happens to know there is a large sum of money hidden in the basement... but there are strange goings-on elsewhere in the house.  This re-unites two of the stars of Rob Zombie's Halloween - Tyler Mane (who makes a surprisingly likeable lead) and Scout Taylor-Compton (who makes an extremely unlikely 19-year-old, and might as well not be in the film).  Also featuring John Schneider from the Dukes of Hazzard...  I fell asleep about a hundred times watching this, on three separate evenings, before eventually getting to the end.  I shouldn't have bothered.

The Invitation (Netflix)
A young American woman does an online DNA test and finds she has posh British relatives, who invite her to a wedding - at New Carfax Abbey in Whitby, North Yorkshire... no prizes for guessing where this is heading, although that's not Whitby and that house is like no British stately home I've ever seen...  Anyway, this starts quite well and looks like it's going to be a fun campy gorefest in the vein of Ready Or Not.  Unfortunately it turns out to be mostly a tedious romance with a few jump scares.  Sean Pertwee's in it, though.

Haych

Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia

This popped up on my Netflix suggestions so gave it a go. 

It tells the story of the rivalry between Lancia and Audi during the 1983 world rally championship. 

Audi was dominating the rally scene with its four wheel drive Quattro and Lancia were lagging behind and had no time or money to develop their own all wheel drive car. 

Instead they made the 037 and by hook and by crook went on to beat Audi for the ‘83 constructors title despite their star driver only turning up for have the stages. 

I was already aware of the history so was interested to see how it would be played out in a dramatisation. I can’t state whether it’s entirely historically accurate but they seemed to have got the gist of things quite well but kept it interesting enough to watch. 

There wasn’t a massive amount of race action, probably due to budget constraints I imagine, but they did splice in what looked like real footage from the time, obviously digitally cleaned up and enhanced. 

If you’re expecting anything like Le Mans ‘66 then you’d be disappointed but as a film to reflect the often inventive ways Lancia went about winning it’s not too bad, but even then those scenes could have been made much more of a feature. 

A good effort but just lacks a certain something. 

6/10

rze99

Haych said:

Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia

This popped up on my Netflix suggestions so gave it a go. 

It tells the story of the rivalry between Lancia and Audi during the 1983 world rally championship. 

Audi was dominating the rally scene with its four wheel drive Quattro and Lancia were lagging behind and had no time or money to develop their own all wheel drive car. 

Instead they made the 037 and by hook and by crook went on to beat Audi for the ‘83 constructors title despite their star driver only turning up for have the stages. 

I was already aware of the history so was interested to see how it would be played out in a dramatisation. I can’t state whether it’s entirely historically accurate but they seemed to have got the gist of things quite well but kept it interesting enough to watch. 

There wasn’t a massive amount of race action, probably due to budget constraints I imagine, but they did splice in what looked like real footage from the time, obviously digitally cleaned up and enhanced. 

If you’re expecting anything like Le Mans ‘66 then you’d be disappointed but as a film to reflect the often inventive ways Lancia went about winning it’s not too bad, but even then those scenes could have been made much more of a feature. 

A good effort but just lacks a certain something. 

6/10

loved my Quattro back when I was young free and single. I could fit a 4X12 in the boot too!

pt22

Godzilla Minus One

A seriously good flick, not just for those interested in the franchise. It stands alone, and somehow the writers/directors found a way to make the human plot interesting and worthwhile. 

Plus, the Godzilla action sequences are mega, and very very well done with a combination of practical and visual effects. 

Highly recommended. 

sinbaadi

About Time (2013)

I'm an easy target when it comes to time travel sci fi movies.  I hadn't seen this and was persuaded by the other half, with no resistance I might add. 

How this gets 7.8 on IMDb I will never know. 

First you get the gimmick, the guy can go back to any point in his past and do it again, and again, and again. 

The writers want to use in very twee ways to stop someone making a fool of themselves or to help a friend's play be a success. 

What I see is a world where NOTHING MATTERS! 

Nothing said cannot be rephrased, no failure cannot be reattempted ad infinitum, but also do whatever you want with zero consequence.  This is like absolute power and the film totally ignores that.

It also totally ignores the fact that effectively you're immortal. 

There are weird jumps from branch to branch, where changes were made that affected the "present".

In short it completely fucks itself and its rules repeatedly. 

I knew it was coming, but when the credits popped Richard Curtis's name up it all made perfect sense. 

Absolute garbage. 

2/10.  

Philly_Q

sinbaadi said:

About Time (2013)

.....I knew it was coming, but when the credits popped Richard Curtis's name up it all made perfect sense. 

Did you have a feeling that you'd been there before...?

robgilmo

I thought About Time was really good, its a romatic film rather than a serious time travel film, Bill Nighy as usual is brilliant.

VimFuego

I must confess I quite liked it, possibly mostly cos the song How Long Will I Love you by Jon Boden is featured in it, and I'm a Boden fanboi.