Raoull duke

Anywhere to watch this in the UK?

35 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

Anyone watching the new series? I've only watches the first 2 episodes so far but then going at China was brilliant.

Everyone with a shred of tegridy should say it:

Fuck the Chinese government. 

1 hour ago, mexos said:

Had a long flight so tried John Wick 3. I didn't even get to the end. I really enjoyed the first two but this one was just going through the motions. 1/5

 

Watched Shazam! instead, it was alright. Funny in places and I liked the characters. It did feel too long mind. 3/5.

 

On a side note, 1h 30- 1h 40 films. What happened? Please come back. Just because you shot it doesn't mean we need to see it. Tighter story writing and editing should be praised like performances do imo. In my experience limitations of what you can and can't do in a creative brief typically result in more creativity not less. Having a blank canvas that can go on and on forever gives us lots of lumpy, lazy overly long films. If running time was treated like a precious, finite resource on the whole I think you'd get better films as directors and editors would have to work harder. 

 

 

2nd one was shit too. 

First one was a belter though. 

R.I.P

It should have a new second half. Book went to shit so hard half way through. 

One cut of the dead 5/5

Made me want to buy a camera and start making mad videos for YouTube. Which is what good films should do. Sort of sagged in the middle a bit but the rest of it more than made up for that. 

30 Days of Night - 2/5

30 days of shite more like. So many aesthetically unpleasant design choices (and not in a good way). The vampires were proper bastards though, none of this soppy emo shit, which I can appreciate. Overall forgettable. 

On 29/09/2019 at 21:56, Nick R said:

Like @SeanR in the ratings thread, I've been watching the Rocky films recently.

 

The only three I've seen before were Rocky (watched in 2013; lived up to its reputation), Rocky II (the first one I saw: I think I caught the last three quarters of it about 15 years ago) and Creed (watched at the start of 2019; great film).

 

They've all been on Amazon Prime Video for a while now, but last week they threw up a message that they have "limited time left on Amazon Prime" (turns out they're all being taken off there tonight, the 29th!) so I thought I'd better hurry up and watch them. So last week I watched one a day. I enjoyed all of them but I can't in good conscience give anything more than an above average rating to III and IV...

 

 

Rocky (1976) - 4/5
A great film. A wonderfully effective, earnest underdog story that completely won me over (as a non-fan of boxing who came to the series with preconceptions about the series being a formulaic joke). The message about meeting your own targets (not others') carries through the series, but here it is in purest and most inspirational and uplifting form. It only improves in comparison to all its sequels, so I'm tempted to bump my rating up from four stars to four and a half to reflect just how remarkable it is.

 

Only Rocky's wooing (for want of a better word) of Adrian comes across as rather dubious nowadays (locking the door and blocking her way...). But it's worth praising the fact that the subsequent sequels prove that their love is one of the most rock-solid long-term relationships that I can think of in any popular film series.

 

 

Rocky II (1979) -3.5/5
So he's got an eye injury now? OK, it'll be interesting to see what excuses the subsequent films contrive to work around that and keep him fighting! (Oh, turns out they're just going to ignore it...)

 

Yeah, it's largely a remake of the first one, but with a bigger budget (more location filming! A crowd in the training scene!) and more interaction between Rocky and Apollo.

 

 

Rocky III (1982) - 2.5/5
I was looking forward to this one because I remembered Creed had emphasised Rocky and Apollo's friendship, and I wanted to see how that came about.

 

This is the film that gave the world "Eye of the Tiger" - I was surprised to discover that the film initially presents it as Mr T's character's theme rather than Rocky's!

 

Not a fan of the Hulk Hogan gimmick fight, but I love the film's ending (the secret fight) and the freeze frame on that great closing credits painting!

 

 

Rocky IV (1985) - 2.5/5

Yeah, I know: I'm putting this far too low. At least according to those who are particularly nostalgic for this one. (I didn't get what everyone loves so much about Star Trek IV either. Clearly I'm a philistine who's dead inside.)

 

I don't dislike it! It's fun, and good at being what it's aiming to be (a compilation of music video montages). But I struggled to embrace its dumb silliness on its own terms; I just kept thinking of how far it had strayed from the relatively subdued working class social realism of the original.

 

 

Rocky V (1990) - 2/5

Not as irredeemably terrible as everyone seems to think! The premise is fine, and in many ways much more ambitious than Rocky IV: like the James Bond series' transition from Moonraker to For Your Eyes Only, it's aiming to bring things down to earth after previous fantastical excesses. Aiming to diverge from the series' formula in such a way is a worthy aim.

 

... It's just the execution that's poor.

 

Still, without it, Rocky Balboa and Creed probably wouldn't have been anywhere near as good.

 

 

Rocky Balboa (2006) - 3.5/5

Considering that until a few days ago I'd never seen half of the Rocky films, I was surprised by how emotionally affecting I found this! Sure, Rocky has numerous speeches that risk going too far in making him a wise homespun philosopher, but I had built up a huge amount of goodwill toward the series by this point, so I was on board all the way.

 

It strikes a great combination of the two sides of the Rocky series: relatively subdued, urban social realist tone of I, II and V (the melancholy, reflective nostalgia of its first hour) and the gloriously absurd fist-pumping triumph of III and IV (when it's time for the training montage and final boxing match - which is, in its own way, almost as ridiculous as the stuff in Rocky IV).

 

 

So here's the ranking:

 

1. Rocky

2. Creed, aka Rocky VII: Adrian's Revenge (I should rewatch this now I've seen the others; I think that it'll only benefit from my increased affection for the series)

3. Rocky II (the only reason I'm putting this above Rocky Balboa is that this has Apollo Creed and that doesn't)

4. Rocky Balboa

5. Rocky III

6. Rocky IV (again, sorry!)

7. Rocky V

 

Still got Creed II to watch...

Spoiler alert: it's a real stinker. 

Joker - 4/5

Spectacular performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Excellent score. Pretty solid all the way around. Zazie Beatz (always a plus).

New series of The End of The Fucking World coming November 5th. 

Highly recommend the first series for anyone who hasn't seen it. 

Twelve Monkeys - 3/5

Was just ok. I like weird shit but this was a tad bit too weird for my tastes. 

Argo - 4/5

Super tense. Great cast. Pretty good. 

Rumor is it got cancelled because the animators unionized.

That would pretty much necessitate a Netflix boycott. 

Silence of the Lambs - 5/5

First full rewatch in well over ten years. An absolute belter. Holds up very well. 

Is this streaming anywhere? 

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - 4/5

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke. Like a non comedic Fargo. 

On 19/09/2019 at 21:34, TheFixx said:

The Lost Boys - 3/5

 

Got this from CEX a couple of days ago as I've intended to watch this for quite a while. Much effort seems to have gone into the look and feel of the film, the music is over the top cool and the makeup very impressive. Sometimes it has average teen comedy and the menace towards the end just became silly, while some of the actors eventually get on your nerves but overall its a fun watch.

The worst thing about The Lost Boys is the version of people are strange that plays on the intro and the outro. Annoys me 100% of the time.

3 hours ago, sandman said:

After this great write up I put The Little Hours on

 

I gave up about 20 minutes in. I must be too old, but What the actual Fuck? Not my cup of tea at all, I reckon if I did get to the end it could have been a new contender for worst movie of all time.

 

0/5 (sorry duke!)

 

 

Pawn Sacrifice

 

An amazing story from the under rated Edward Zwick. I knew nothing about Bobby Fischer and his life is an amazing tale. 

 

Great performances from everyone, particularly Maguire

 

5/5

If everyone liked the same shit the world would be a very boring place. Would suggest maybe giving it a another fifteen twenty minutes though. I was thinking "what the fuck is this shit?" for the first fifteen twenty minutes myself. First twenty minutes are just setting the seven basically. It gets a lot better. If you still aren't liking it forty minutes in you could call it at that point. 

RoboCop 2 - 2/5

So bad compared to the first one.

Per BoJack's IG this is gonna be part of a double season. And the Last season. The second part of which will release in January. 

Glad they aren't gonna just run it into the ground. But sad that the end is so imminent. 

Allahu Akhbar! 

New Rick and Morty coming in November too. 

What a time to be alive.

The Little Hours - 4/5

Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly and Fred Armisen. Nuns. Donkeys. Big hairy merkins. What's not to like?

It is one and one half hours long. Tempted to bump it up to a 5/5 for this fact alone. 

It's on Netflix. 

Safety not Guaranteed - 2/5

More Aubrey Plaza sadly though this was soppy shite. 

It's also on Netflix. 

18 hours ago, Waggo said:

The Princess Bride on Netflix - 5 outta 5.

 

Childhood nostalgia sure is mighty powerful.

 

Watched it the other day. Was very good. 5/5.

Then yesterday I watched Willow also 5/5. 

Gonna go for 3/3 and watch The Goonies later. 

3 hours ago, Shimmyhill said:

Bohemian Rhapsody.
 

I didn’t think I would kplike it but I did, well acted and some catchy tunes

 

4/5

You really giving a Queen biopic points for good songs? LOL.

Alien Resurrection - 3/5

Daft as fuck but enjoyable enough and brief. 

Planet Terror - 5/5

I have no idea why I never watched this when it first came out. I love this sort of mad stupid shit. 

Alien 3 - 2/5

Somehow even worse than I remember.