What films have you watched recently?

breakstuff

jonnyburgo said:

Bring her Back 

Don't want to give too much away, Brother and sister move into foster care with a woman who is grieving the death of her daughter. 

It's fucking mental, excellent makeup effects. Nice to see a horror that doesn't rely on a monster or jump scares, and is all the more effective for it. My wife struggled with one scene in particular, when you watch it you'll know the one.

What horror should be, very unsettling.

The scene I'm sure you're referring to is absolutely brutal. I posted earlier that I'm quite hard to shock when it comes to horror, but that scene did me in. Great film which I'll definitely watch again but with the advantage of knowing when to look away.

axisus

axisus said:

Offset said:

The Satan Bug (1965), Prime.

Classic '60s sci-fi/crime romp based on a novel by Alistair MacLean.

I haven't seen this for decades and was in the mood for a bit of nostalgia.  Directed by John Sturges and featuring a decent cast, the film has some spectacular Californian locations and vistas and is nicely shot.  The plot is highly implausible and has some gaping holes in it, but such is the quality of the production (and in particular Richard Basehart's performance) your disbelief is quickly suspended and you just get on with the film.

I throughly enjoyed this despite the flaws.  Great to look at, silly plot, a dobermann with a lump on his head and Ed Asner.  What more could you want?!

8/10.

Thanks for the heads up! I saw that as a kid with my family and it's a film we all loved. I haven't seen it for a great many years so I shall take a look again. I did see it again about 20 years ago. I've always liked films with this kind of subject matter and I think that seeing this is why.

Further to this, I watched The Satan Bug again last night. A wonderful slice of 60s film! it's funny to think that this was a contemporary film at the time, but now it is so obviously the style of that decade. I really enjoyed it but memory is a strange thing. The one scene I remembered was the one where the guys get locked in the abandoned building, but the whole look was nothing like I remembered it. I thought it was a much bigger building in a town with a window 30ft up. The scene was nothing like that at all! Yes, it's a flawed film, but it's also a fun adventure from that decade, and it has put me in the mood to dig out some more 60s films.

GoFish

So last night I painted my nails, put my hair in rollers and watching this femme-tastic double bill (after giving up on MI:3 30 mins in)

The Hustle (2019) - Do you want to see a shot by shot remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Anne Hathaway playing Michael Caine? You're in luck. It's about 70% as funny as the other one, maybe 80%? Hmmm. What more is there to say?

Frances Ha (2012) - Imagine 70s Woody Allen with more pretension and fewer jokes. This is widely cited as Greta Gerwig's breakthrough. Like all her other films, most of it is done by Noah Baumbach, her husband? There's probably some super feminist 4d chess that I'm just too manly to understand or question. It made me think fondly of the previous movie and I wasn't sure what could do that.

Note to self - pick better movies for this sort of thing.

froglord

GoFish said:

Has anyone here seen Ford vs Ferrari (2019)?

I'm a very long way from being a petrolhead, but I thought it was great. This is the racing film for people who aren't interested in racing.

GoFish

Thanks @froglord ; - good to get a recommendation from a fellow amphibian

axisus

Watched one of my fave children's films this afternoon - Flight of the navigator. It's a fun film and I always enjoy a look every 5 years or so. The exterior space ship is still incredibly cool looking, and the premise is really good. I like the gas station scene, it's not an 'amazing' scene, just a bit of gentle amusement.

From Rotten Tomatoes site on release: "Bolstered by impressive special effects and a charming performance from its young star, Flight of the Navigator holds up as a solidly entertaining bit of family-friendly sci-fi."

Apparently a remake is in the pipeline. I'm interested, but will it retain the charm of the original?

On Amazon Prime. 

Philly_Q

The Black Demon (Amazon Prime)

Struggling to find something to watch on the cornucopia of streaming services at your fingertips?  Try a shark movie!  An evening of distinctly average entertainment is almost guaranteed.

Josh Lucas (vaguely familiar but I can't be bothered to Google him) plays an American engineer who travels to Mexico to inspect an oil rig which may need to be decommissioned.  He takes his wife and children along for the trip.  They soon learn that the rig is under attack by a giant shark - "El Demonio" - and there's no way back to the mainland.

It's hard to actively hate this... the cast really do seem to be trying their best.  But there's a great deal of talking and very little shark action.  It's pretty dull.  Not recommended.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Superman (2025)

Not really into the whole superhero thing, but I quite enjoyed this. Total nonsense of course, but didn't seem to take itself too seriously and was good fun. Never seen the lead actor before but he was pretty good, and had good chemistry with the excellent Rachel Brosnahan (who I've had a soft spot for since watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel).

Was relatively short for a superhero blockbuster type thing which was refreshing, and it definitely benefitted from not having tediously long, dull fight/battle scenes.

7/10

SteveRobinson

SteveRobinson said:

ICBM said:

The Ballad Of Wallis Island

Going on Saturday to see this at our new local independent cinema.

Both Mrs R and I enjoyed this very much.

Highly recommended.

Offset

Island Escape (Prime), 2023.

I fancied a spot of Sunday no-brainer time-wasting and so selected the first piece of dross suggested by Prime.

This film is untroubled by notions of budget, plot coherence or acting ability.  It's a weird mashup of The Evil Dead, The Island Of Dr Moreau, Predator and movies like Coherence.  It's complete and utter tosh of course, and yet... and yet... for some inexplicable reason I rather enjoyed it.  I'd even go so far as to (very) cautiously recommend it - there are far worse movies in this genre out there.

Approach with caution but for me, an unexpected 5.5/10.

Brio

Thunderbolts
Excellent Marvel. Florence Pugh rocks.
A solid 9/10 for me. 
A slight dragging of pace in the politics scenes but it works well in the end.

Winny_Pooh

Companion 

Solid, fun, sci-fi thriller/horror ripper.
Basic script, but well cast & played.

7.5/10

Gulliver

Cleaner (2025) - Sky

Did you wish someone had made female-lead Die Hard, but with a shittier script?   Then Cleaner is what you want.



It starts out quite promisingly - where the protagonist Joey's backstory is subtly introduced, then the filmmakers decided that trying to be clever was too much work, so it became a cliched and hurried nonsense action film.  I think if the scenes had a little more jeopardy in scenes where someone needs to be convinced of something, making the film 10/15 minutes longer, it would be much better.  I watched it a few days ago and I've already forgotten a lot of the plot.

Daisy Ridley does a pretty decent job of the action stuff, but it is a pretty mindless popcorn film.

4/10

RichAC

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

Superman (2025)

Not really into the whole superhero thing, but I quite enjoyed this. Total nonsense of course, but didn't seem to take itself too seriously and was good fun. Never seen the lead actor before but he was pretty good, and had good chemistry with the excellent Rachel Brosnahan (who I've had a soft spot for since watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel).

Was relatively short for a superhero blockbuster type thing which was refreshing, and it definitely benefitted from not having tediously long, dull fight/battle scenes.

7/10

Just got back from seeing this (in IMAX, which always helps). I had a similar take - enjoyable nonsense. It seemed to mostly be channelling the Christopher Reeve films, which was refreshing in the age of grimdark.

Offset

Impossible to score.  Mad as a box of, errrm, frogs.  You really need to watch it 

Ribbit.

goldtop

Grangousier said:

@goldtop - If you enjoyed Berberian Sound Studio, you might enjoy other Peter Strickland films, which are equally as perplexing and good-looking. No studio equipment in The Duke of Burgundy or In Fabric, but Flux Gourmet features a band who electronically manipulate the sounds of cooking. And Asa Butterfield, who, if they ever make a biopic of Throbbing Gristle, has to be a shoo-in for Genesis P-Orridge. 

Well Ch4 streaming now has The Duke of Burgundy, so I watched it. It's a film about a couple of kinky lepidopterists. Won't say more than that, but it continues the "I've got a weird idea for a film" theme. Gorgeously shot, and the sound and score are once again fantastic. The plot isn't really a plot, and it's packed with a lot of sometimes odd and always beautiful detail. 7/10

Winny_Pooh

goldtop said:

Grangousier said:

@goldtop - If you enjoyed Berberian Sound Studio, you might enjoy other Peter Strickland films, which are equally as perplexing and good-looking. No studio equipment in The Duke of Burgundy or In Fabric, but Flux Gourmet features a band who electronically manipulate the sounds of cooking. And Asa Butterfield, who, if they ever make a biopic of Throbbing Gristle, has to be a shoo-in for Genesis P-Orridge. 

Well Ch4 streaming now has The Duke of Burgundy, so I watched it. It's a film about a couple of kinky lepidopterists. Won't say more than that, but it continues the "I've got a weird idea for a film" theme. Gorgeously shot, and the sound and score are once again fantastic. The plot isn't really a plot, and it's packed with a lot of sometimes odd and always beautiful detail. 7/10

There was an amazing sequence near the end with stunning sound design. Bizarre, unrealistic but still intriguing movie. Definitely sprung from the mind of a man.

GoFish

Happy Death Day 2 U (2019) - Sequel to mediocre genre bending time-loop slasher flick. It's better than the first one by virtue of leaning into the time loops premise and downplaying the slasher angle. Still, it's a movie for young people who've not seen many slasher or timeloop films. As someone who's watched pretty much every timeloop film it is okay-ish. Fun enough, few surprises if you know the basic genre beats. Well worth seeing the first one before this though.

The Dead Zone (1983) - David Cronenburg is a goddamn master. Helped by an atmospheric Stephen King story. Big cast and performances by Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen and Herbert Lom in particular. Accident survivor Walken awakes from a coma to find he has premonition abilities for people who he touches. It's of its time in terms of pace and action - quite episodic and would be a better fit as a mini series but Cronenburg makes it work. Atmospheric wise like a cross between Taxi Driver and Scanners. I loved it. Probably the best film I've seen since Arrival a few months ago.

axisus

GoFish said:

The Dead Zone (1983) - David Cronenburg is a goddamn master. Helped by an atmospheric Stephen King story. Big cast and performances by Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen and Herbert Lom in particular. Accident survivor Walken awakes from a coma to find he has premonition abilities for people who he touches. It's of its time in terms of pace and action - quite episodic and would be a better fit as a mini series but Cronenburg makes it work. Atmospheric wise like a cross between Taxi Driver and Scanners. I loved it. Probably the best film I've seen since Arrival a few months ago.

Ahhh yes, I need to see that again! Saw it way back in the 80s and haven't seen it since. My recollection is that it was somewhat creepier than I generally like. Great casting having Walken in the role.

Philly_Q

It looks like @Offset and I have both been exploring the darkest cobwebby corners of the Amazon Prime horror basement...

Intruder (1989)

A supermarket cashier is harassed by her ex-boyfriend.  Her co-workers throw him out, but after closing time as they're clearing up and preparing for the next working day, a vengeful killer is on the prowl...  This features minor acting roles for Sam Raimi, his brother Ted, and Bruce Campbell, and it's directed by their buddy Scott Spiegel.  I don't think I've seen this since 1989.  It's a low budget effort but it's got some very icky murder scenes and impressive practical FX and it all moves at a brisk pace.  Recommended if you like that sort of thing...

American Gothic (1988)

Three young couples are forced to land their seaplane on a remote island off the coast of Washington State.  They find it's inhabited by an elderly couple known only as Ma and Pa, plus their three middle-aged offspring, who behave like young children.  It soon becomes clear that Ma and Pa don't like visitors...  Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo must have fallen on extremely hard times to have agreed to star in this tosh.  It's like a Hammer House of Horror version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre... it's all extremely tame, but there's also something very sleazy about it.  Worth a watch, if only for curiosity value.