What was the last film you watched?

[Tigerrr]

The revenant. Best crawling movie ever. De Caprio crawls superbly in snow and ice and water. Masterful anguished bleak facial expressions. Best bear attack ever filmed. Horse guts less convincing.

[LEE]

San Andreas

Standard high-budget disaster movie fare.  Brits who weren't evil.  But what I really want to know is when did we get to the point where the fact that a basic wired phone plugged into an analogue POTS line will work without mains power is obscure technical information that might serve as a plot device?   

I may have missed the point but wired phones don't use mains power, they are powered by the POTS line itself, 50-70v.

[Ruthie]

San Andreas

Standard high-budget disaster movie fare.  Brits who weren't evil.  But what I really want to know is when did we get to the point where the fact that a basic wired phone plugged into an analogue POTS line will work without mains power is obscure technical information that might serve as a plot device?   

We got to that point in The Day After Tomorrow.  So, 2004.

Me and mcshroom thought San Andreas was fairly dreadful and I hated all the main protaganists and wanted them to drown.  The daughter in particular.

[Andrew]

Anomalisa animated film written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman. This film doesn't have the usual Kaufman mind warps and is pretty straight forward; a successful, middle-aged man in meltdown. Struggling with issues of identity, boredom and purpose he finds temporary respite in an unfamilar face (and voice). You quickly forget you're watching puppets and empathise with the human condition.

The animation (stop motion) is brilliant. This film is worth seeing for that alone. Add to it the very human story and it becomes captivating viewing. There's a curious final scene, I thought so anyway, almost a redirect. I'm still timed-out as to its significance.

[Kim]

San Andreas

Standard high-budget disaster movie fare.  Brits who weren't evil.  But what I really want to know is when did we get to the point where the fact that a basic wired phone plugged into an analogue POTS line will work without mains power is obscure technical information that might serve as a plot device?   

I may have missed the point but wired phones don't use mains power, they are powered by the POTS line itself, 50-70v.

Exactamundo.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The revenant. Best crawling movie ever. De Caprio crawls superbly in snow and ice and water. Masterful anguished bleak facial expressions. Best bear attack ever filmed. Horse guts less convincing.

It's better than when he leaves the country club, gets into his car and drives slowly and carefully home?  (Wolf of Wall Street)   And why did he attack the bear?  No, don't tell me, I can wait.   

   

[T42]

A very nice little staging of J. B. Priestly's play An Inspector Calls.  BBC plug-in-component cast but that got the family game of spot-the-star over PDQ so that we could actually catch everything being said for a change.

Always did like his stuff. This was great.

[Andrew]

Contagion What an odd experience it was watching this movie. It had all the components to be a good movie (director, cast, budget, even script) yet somehow failed. It's not like the subject couldn't have delivered a decent film either. It even felt like it thought it was a good movie but.... I think someone simply forgot to decide what they wanted to say. It didn't suck, it just didn't happen.

And why did Jude Law play an Australian? (At least, I think he was trying to be an Australian). His accent wasn't spot on and was simply distracting when his nationality was irrelevant to the film.

[T42]

Tell me this: did they heal sick people by vaccinating them? Because if they did I don't want to see it.

[Andrew]

Tell me this: did they heal sick people by vaccinating them?

In honesty, I don't know but I think not. If you got the bat/pig flu then you were a gonna. I think the vacine developed merely prevented you from catching it in the first place. I don't think it was absolutely clear though.

A web search reveals that the film was applauded for its treatment of the science; introducing and using medical terms correctly etc. Maybe the intention of the film (the thing I didn't see) was to be factual - a kind of docu-film or perhaps more accurately a film-umentary. Maybe I was looking for the wrong thing and it's actually a wonderful, genre-defying film.

[T42]

Well... I'll put it on the maybe list.

Cheers

[Ruthie]

Late to the party, as usual ...

Everest

As others have said, not an easy or enjoyable watch.  It was a bit like Casualty.  You try and work out at the start who's going to die, and how, adjusting en route for bad decisions, then see how many you can tick off at the end.

Ye gods.  I think I value my life too much to go doing that sort of thing, and I'm fine with that.  Way above the acceptable risk level. The saddest one was the little Japanese woman topping her seventh summit.  She was the most sympathetic character IMO, and she died a horrible lonely death, and she's still up on that mountain, freeze-dried.  Sheesh.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Even later..

The Bedford Incident

1965 Cold War tension with excellent cast.  B&W.

[TimC]

Late to the party, as usual ...

Everest

As others have said, not an easy or enjoyable watch.  It was a bit like Casualty.  You try and work out at the start who's going to die, and how, adjusting en route for bad decisions, then see how many you can tick off at the end.

Ye gods.  I think I value my life too much to go doing that sort of thing, and I'm fine with that.  Way above the acceptable risk level. The saddest one was the little Japanese woman topping her seventh summit.  She was the most sympathetic character IMO, and she died a horrible lonely death, and she's still up on that mountain, freeze-dried.  Sheesh.

Yes, I watched this last night. Harrowing. I was in bits by the end.

[L CC]

I'm slightly embarrassed to say I didn't know what was going to happen in Everest.
I found it really hard to watch. No1Daughter & I were in a state of shock by the time we left the cinema.

[Exit Stage Left]

The trailer makes it seem like a fairly standard action movie. It's pretty faithful to the accounts, and we were mainly interested in how Anatoli Boukreev would come out of it.
The main accounts conflict, which is why the film credits a book about the Brian Blessed expedition from the Tibetan side at the same time.That was written by the TV producer making the film. He got to the summit, Brian didn't.
That's a lighter read, and a good background to the subject, although people die, obviously.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Zone-Climbing-Everest-Through/dp/0099255723

[Wascally Weasel]

Even later..

The Bedford Incident

1965 Cold War tension with excellent cast.  B&W.

Very early performance from Donald Sutherland in it (the bit where they are analysing the cabbage).

It's a retelling of Moby Dick with the Soviet Submarine substituting for Ahab's great while whale of course (and no worse for it).

[Jaded]

The original Girl with Dragon Tattoo film and the other two in the trilogy. Very enjoyable films, well made and filmed. I watched the English dub version, which seems to have been done pretty well. The final one was the weakest, I felt.

[hillbilly]

I'm slightly embarrassed to say I didn't know what was going to happen in Everest.
I found it really hard to watch. No1Daughter & I were in a state of shock by the time we left the cinema.

I was very disappointed by the absence of double glazing. 0/10.

[Ruthie]

Late to the party, as usual ...

Everest

As others have said, not an easy or enjoyable watch.  It was a bit like Casualty.  You try and work out at the start who's going to die, and how, adjusting en route for bad decisions, then see how many you can tick off at the end.

Ye gods.  I think I value my life too much to go doing that sort of thing, and I'm fine with that.  Way above the acceptable risk level. The saddest one was the little Japanese woman topping her seventh summit.  She was the most sympathetic character IMO, and she died a horrible lonely death, and she's still up on that mountain, freeze-dried.  Sheesh.

Yes, I watched this last night. Harrowing. I was in bits by the end.

The big hero of that story must be the chopper pilot.

"I'm going to lift the tail, then tip over the edge and fall until the blades catch the air.  That all right with you?"

Unbelievable.  So brave.

[Kim]

The big hero of that story must be the chopper pilot.

"I'm going to lift the tail, then tip over the edge and fall until the blades catch the air.  That all right with you?"

Unbelievable.  So brave.

I think bravery's a basic requirement if you're going to thrash yourself into the air on a flying windmill, but agreed.

His name is Madan Khatri Chhetri, and in real life he did it twice.

He's performed countless other crazy flying windmill rescues since.

[Andrew]

The Next Three Days probably the best I've seen from Russel Crowe. Which is maybe not saying much. A perfectly capable thriller worth watching. I found it a tad too long but then imo a film has to be pretty darned good to sustain itself over 100 minutes*.

*One of the first things I look at when deciding whether to watch a film. If it's over 2 hours then I'm doubtful.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The Next Three Days probably the best I've seen from Russel Crowe. Which is maybe not saying much.

He was quite good as a Hornblower but he couldn't keep it up.

I mean there was only one.

[fuzzy]

The Next Three Days probably the best I've seen from Russel Crowe. Which is maybe not saying much.

He was quite good as a Hornblower but he couldn't keep it up.

I mean there was only one.

Portraying John Nash in 'A Beautiful Mind'?

[menthel]

Chappie. It's dreadful.