Rate the last film you watched out of 5

[IcEBuRN]

On 29/07/2021 at 17:29, Jamie John said:

Interstellar (2014)

 

 

I've seen this a couple of times now and I think it's perhaps just a bit too ambitious to really make sense, even at almost three hours long. The plot doesn't bear that much close scrutiny before you start to notice the holes, and it doesn't quite stick the landing, for me, anyway.

 

As ever with Nolan, however, the production values, score and some of the imagery is through the roof, so those three hours pass by very quickly. I really loved McConaughey's performance, too - there were a couple of scenes between him and his daughter that surprisingly choked me up.

 

Even if it doesn't quite pull it off, more films like this that focus on the unknowability of space, glimpsing into the infinite void, and all the rest of it, can only be a good thing.

 

4/5

 

Has anyone read the book that came out with it, The Science of Interstellar? It was written by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who acted as a consultant for the film, apparently. I wonder how accessible it is.

This is my favourite movie of all time, if I had to pick one. It's definitely not perfect, and there are absolutely better films, but for me, the combination of the IMAX scenes, the amazing soundtrack, the scale of the film (Nolan's team grew their own bloody corn fields to fuck about with!) it's just a masterpiece for me. 

 

In other news, I just watched The Professor (Johnny Depp) on Prime video. A nice movie, which I had no idea existed, where Johnny Depp plays someone who is a terminally ill professor, living out his final days. Also, basically drunk all the time. I wonder how much was acted!? Worth a watch. 6.5/10.

[Vimster]

Cardboard Gangsters (2017) Netflix

You've seen this story many times before: low-level drug-dealing street crims try and work their way up the scale to become the big guys, tread on a few toes along the way, nothing goes smoothly. Largely predictable but enjoyable Irish crime saga, rough and brutal, just enough grit. Some decent twists towards the end.

 

3/5

 

 

[Bazjam]

After loving The Green Knight, thought I should check out more of David Lowery’s work.

 

Ain't Them Bodies Saints - 4/5

 

I love these modern takes on westerns we’re getting a lot of these days (Hell Or High Water, First Cow). Great performances all round,but particularly by Ben Foster who just seems to be great in everything he does.

 

A Ghost Story - 5/5

 

wow, I simply loved this film. I remember hearing the premise when it came out and dismissing it as probably over artsy and dull. How wrong I was. Lowery is such an assured director and sweeps you along in this truly unique film. Death and mortality is something that’s unfortunately become all to real in my life recently which made this really hit home. I already want to watch it again.

 

I’m now a card carrying Lowery fan. Can’t believe I missed all these film. The Old Man And The Gun, and Pete’s Dragon next.

[Indy @ S.E.]

Sweet Girl

 

Quite liked this, moved along at a nice snappy pace and nothing really felt wasted. Don't want to say much more in case I end up giving something away but really enjoyed it.

 

3.5/5

[uglifruit]

Coco. (Pixar)

Bloody great.  Touching, in a good way, funny, and great music/songs.  Also interesting to see they've worked hard to animate the fingers when guitar playing realistically, and looks 'right'.

 

5 out of 5 (tears).

[kempstar]

7 hours ago, uglifruit said:

Coco. (Pixar)

Bloody great.  Touching, in a good way, funny, and great music/songs.  Also interesting to see they've worked hard to animate the fingers when guitar playing realistically, and looks 'right'.

 

5 out of 5 (tears).

Oh man. Its a brilliant film. Its extra special to me as I studied in Mexico and the mythology is very meaningful.  The whole ending sequence had me in floods of tears. Then I managed to compose myself and….. 

Spoiler

The fucking ghost of grandma appears, singing and smiling, and im a mess again

 

[neoELITE]

Annihilation

Netflix

Just so boring. I turned it off after an hour. The premise was interesting and the mainly female cast should have been interesting but I was disinterested. 

1/5

[ScouserInExile]

23 hours ago, Vimster said:

Cardboard Gangsters (2017) Netflix

You've seen this story many times before: low-level drug-dealing street crims try and work their way up the scale to become the big guys, tread on a few toes along the way, nothing goes smoothly. Largely predictable but enjoyable Irish crime saga, rough and brutal, just enough grit. Some decent twists towards the end.

 

3/5

 

 

There's an annoying trope that I've starting noticing in all these kinds of films :

Spoiler

The main character could get away, but always goes back fir no good reason and gets killed. 

 

[Vimster]

2 minutes ago, ScouserInExile said:

There's an annoying trope that I've starting noticing in all these kinds of films :

  Hide contents

The main character could get away, but always goes back fir no good reason and gets killed. 

 

Worse:

Spoiler

Main character falls for main rival's girlfriend. Every time.

 

[Floshenbarnical]

Old (2021) Movie theater

 

As you might expect from an M. Night Shymalan movie, the plot is predictable, convoluted, and constructed almost entirely of holes. The ending is trite and convenient, and the acting is for the most part wooden and terrible. As is the writing! Fuck me, at times I was convinced that he was trying to emulate old Clue-style movies, but I think it's actually just a bad movie. None of the people behave like human beings, for the most part. It's like an AI has watched a whole bunch of bad movies and thought "Ah yes, this is what people are like" and then written all the dialogue.

 

Still, it's an interesting premise I guess and sort of tense at times.

 

2/5

 

 

 

[Festoon]

2 hours ago, Floshenbarnical said:

Old (2021) Movie theater

 

As you might expect from an M. Night Shymalan movie, the plot is predictable, convoluted, and constructed almost entirely of holes. The ending is trite and convenient, and the acting is for the most part wooden and terrible. As is the writing! Fuck me, at times I was convinced that he was trying to emulate old Clue-style movies, but I think it's actually just a bad movie. None of the people behave like human beings, for the most part. It's like an AI has watched a whole bunch of bad movies and thought "Ah yes, this is what people are like" and then written all the dialogue.

 

Still, it's an interesting premise I guess and sort of tense at times.

 

2/5

 

 

 

 

I found it got old real quick.

 

Arf!

[Indy @ S.E.]

Tom & Jerry (2021)

 

Mix of live action and cartoon, pretty average kids level film which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Quite a strong human cast too. Bonus points awarded for when:

 

Spoiler

Tom sings

2.5/5

[Jamie John]

Batman (1989)

 

 

I haven't seen this in at least twenty years. I didn't really think it held up all that well. The best thing about it is the art and set design - Gotham feels and looks like Gotham should, certainly compared with the Nolan Batman films, where Gotham is just modern-day Chicago. Danny Elfman's iconic score is also great - the classic sequence with the Batmobile driving through the leaves and the music surging is just as effective as I (vaguely) remember it from my childhood.

 

In most other respects, though, this felt pretty sub-par. The characterisation of Batman himself is weak. Keaton spends most of the film looking like he's half-asleep and just doesn't strike as an intimidating enough figure, as neither Bruce Wayne nor Batman, and certainly not as the world's greatest detective. I think the biggest issue is that he's just not given enough screen-time or lines to develop, especially at the beginning of the film. It almost feels like you're watching a sequel, where the character and his motivations and so on was established in the first movie. The robotic way he moves when he's in the suit is also pretty comical. This isn't his fault (the rubber suit didn't let him move his neck), but it still makes him look like C3-PO, turning his entire body to move.

 

Nicholson's Joker is pretty inconsistent, I thought. He's better at the beginning of the movie, when he's still the traitorous crime lieutenant Jack Napier. After he turns into the Joker, a lot of the time he comes across as just high more than insane and seems to be phoning it in a lot, especially if you compare his performance as a homicidal maniac in this with The Shining, where he's a lot more convincing.

Mostly, though the tone of the film overall seems all over the place. On the one hand you've got this very dark, brooding presentation of the city with its gothic towers, rain, mist and steaming vents. You've got a character who electrocutes another until he literally combusts and is left as a charred skeleton. You've got characters being dropped into vats of boiling acid so they're left permanently disfigured. Then, on the other hand, you've got bits which are goofy as fuck, akin to the 60s TV show. Like when the Joker and his cronies vandalise the museum while dancing to Prince on their comedy oversized boombox. What was that about? It was horrible. Or the bits where Joker uses his props (where he even got these from, I'm not sure), like his revolver with its four foot barrel, that's apparently powerful enough to blow up the Batwing with one shot. Or the bit where he does the parody TV advert for the cosmetic products he's tampered with, and is somehow able to forcibly take over every network in the city. How?

 

It was just jarring. I get that this is a movie based on a comic book character, but it's also a 15-rated film featuring frequent gun violence and mass shootings and, a lot of the time, is obviously going for a noir-ish, menacing atmosphere. Yet it features lots of scenes that wouldn't be out of place on a children's matinee show.

 

I dunno. Maybe I'm way off. This came out the year before I was born and, like Dawn of the Dead, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, I suspect for a lot of people it's a film that is impossible to divorce from the context in which it was released and is never going to have the same impact 32 years later, but I can't truthfully say I enjoyed it that much. I'll get round to watching Batman Returns at some point. Maybe that'll be better.

 

2/5

[Treble]

That's completely fair. I'm not a sentimental person, and rewatched it recently with the scales removed. Its clear now it was a huge success because of a couple of factors... Well, because of the marketing campaign as much as anything, but film wise yeah, a couple of things. 

 

Firstly, the relative freshness of Tim Burton's approach. He was an animator and puppeteer given the keys to the kingdom, and made a genuinely unique film. It doesn't hold together well in retrospect (you rightly mention tone, but the pacing is horrible as well) but it was one of the first films of the new post-Reagan era to be completely non-conservative and artist-led in approach. 

 

Secondly, it married the TV Batman bif-pow-sock kitsch with the darker tone of the early comics. Not the brutal and uncompromising world of Frank Miller's Dark Knight but the heavy contrast, noirish 40s stuff which Burton interpreted into a pastiche of German Expressionism. The callbacks were a great way to utilise the ol' memberberries. 

 

It's a huge pop-cultural touchstone that changed the approach to fantasy cinema for a good decade - until The Matrix came out - but as a film by itself? Deeply flawed. 

[Nick R]

1 hour ago, Jamie John said:

I'll get round to watching Batman Returns at some point. Maybe that'll be better.

 

It's been a very long time since I've watched either of them, but I always preferred Returns, by far.

[Stig]

1 hour ago, Nick R said:

 

It's been a very long time since I've watched either of them, but I always preferred Returns, by far.

 

Speaking of Batman Returns, this is the last living penguin from the film. I saw him last Friday.

 

 

[Protocol Penguin]

5 minutes ago, Nick R said:

 

It's been a very long time since I've watched either of them, but I always preferred Returns, by far.

I rewatched it three years ago, and was pretty… Shocked? How it was considered marketable as a big blockbuster summer film back in 1992. It’s twisted.

[sandman]

Heres my review of Batman 89

 

5/5

 

nuff said

[Talvalin]

The best thing that came out of Batman 89 was the animated series, which was just amazing all the way through.

[Vimster]

Doing the streaming version of FrightFest this year, just watched the first film:

 

The Show (2020)

Eccentric, off-beat noir written by Alan Moore and set in his neck of the woods, Northampton. Is it a ghost story, a murder mystery? It does go in those directions and others, gets rather psychedelic in places too. There are some good laughs here delivered dryly. The biggest issue I had was it felt too reliant on exposition, there were several points where characters would attempt to explain the situation in a way that did somewhat bring everything back to reality, and that's a shame because there's a pleasantly disorienting feel to the setting, with oddball characters of varying likeability. Feels like something you could find on BBC4.

 

2.5/5

[Chewylegs]

Batman

 

I've been meaning to watch this for a while now and after @Jamie John post I thought I'd get the DVD out.

 

what can I say, this is still a quality film.  From the awesome Gotham sets, which put the other films to shame, to the music score and costume design, it's nostalgic but in a good way.  Keaton is moody, a bit fragile but likeable as Wayne, rather than the later very arrogant versions of him.  Batman still has the menace, and I actually like the way he (doesn't) move his head, it adds a strange dynamic to his fighting.

jack Nicholson in no way phones it in for me.  I'd say he gets more psychotic as the film goes on and the comic book silliness mixed with random Joker kills from no where create that sense of him being a little unhinge!

 

what else...Batmobile is fucking brilliant, still looks awesome (although oddly slow in some scenes), Kim Basinger is just smokin' and Alfred is still the best. 

 

For a 32 year old film it still does it for me.

 

4.5/5

 

[Fierce Poodle]

The only issue with Keaton is his chin isn’t big enough to make a convincing Batman.

[cassidy]

I ain't gonna say a bad word about 89 Batman, cos I was 14 and it was the biggest Superhero film, since Superman the movie. Loved it then, love it now. 

 

Burton's direction. Anton's sets.

Nicholson and Keaton

Batman the album. 

 

Not seen it for years mind. 

[Chewylegs]

20 minutes ago, Fierce Poodle said:

The only issue with Keaton is his chin isn’t big enough to make a convincing Batman.

He does have a small chin you're right.  😂

[cassidy]

Vacation Friends (Disney +) 

 

This was a unexpected treat tbh. 

John Cena is pretty great in this and it's quite a funny movie. 

 

And Lil Rey Howery played a great straight man to him. 

 

Moments dragged a smidge on occasion but overall I would recommend giving it a watch. 

 

3.75/5 

[Vimster]

Crabs! (2021)

Crabs! are attacking a small coastal town, but they're just the beginning. It's down to a wheelchair-bound kid and his Iron Man power cell to save the day. Obviously pretty cheap and largely cheerful, the sum of its influences. Just sit back and roll with it. Cast of likeable characters, except Radu the foreign exchange student who was proper Marmite; could imagine some really liking him but I personally thought he was dreadful. Bit of creature feature, bit of Gremlins, bit of this and that, warmed to it. Not perfect but there's an enjoyable film here.

 

2.5/5

[Steve McQueef]

1 hour ago, cassidy said:

I ain't gonna say a bad word about 89 Batman, cos I was 14 and it was the biggest Superhero film, since Superman the movie. Loved it then, love it now.

Same, although I seem to find it more of a comedy now. 

 

It's fucking hilarious. 

[cassidy]

41 minutes ago, Steve McQueef said:

Same, although I seem to find it more of a comedy now. 

 

It's fucking hilarious. 

I can't deny I didn't laugh. But it's not Batman 66. 

 

Which I think is the main point of the movie. 

 

It's a different type of camp to that. 

[Chewylegs]

10 hours ago, Steve McQueef said:

Same, although I seem to find it more of a comedy now. 

 

It's fucking hilarious. 

Never rub another man's rhubarb!😂

[RubberJohnny]

The Ninth Configuration - There's some pretty evocative imagery and good dramatic conversations buried in here, but most of the running length of what is supposed to be a psychological horror is filled with shite comedy about the mentally ill (which is at least less offensive than the black guy in a Superman outfit with a big N logo on his chest). The sheer datedness of "all mental patients think they're Napoleon" style stuff is one thing (what was the inflection point for media starting to deal with mental health sensitively? I want to say the Sopranos), it's just a complete tonal mismatch, and a lot of time feels like it's there to pad out the running length of a plot that's barely two-acts. 1/5 if I'm being generous

 

Attack on Precinct 13 - Also add me to those who found this disappointing, given the setup you'd think this'd be a tight 'bottle-ship' film with some good drama among the police and prisoners holed up. I couldn't help feel it squandered everything about it's premise, despite the short running length this has a meandering, overlong start, quickly kills off any possible cast conflict (sometimes literally) and then ends suddenly and anticlimactically. 2/5

 

The Day Will Come - I like Chris Morris, but I can't help feel the problem with this film is that it's based on a real case. It's not subtle about what it wants you to take from it, the... protagonists(?) are portrayed as sympathetic and merely eccentric, and the authorities are portrayed as sinister and willing to do anything to get a conviction - it's a polemic basically, and would work as a fictional satire. But because it's based on a real case you're constantly in your back of your mind asking if this is a remotely fair reading of events. 2.5/5