What was the last film you watched?

[ian]

Blood Red Sky, says my email from Netflix.

They'll probably mess it up like Snakes on a Plane, of course, but I still think that's the best tagline ever.

The weird thing is that if you ever listen right to the end of the safety briefing they tell you precisely what to do should your seatmate turn out to be a vampire mid-flight. But no one in the entire history of flying, has ever paid attention to the end of those briefings. Even the Wright brothers were "ok, whatever, we get it, crash into water, blow into the tube, can we take off now?"

"Shouldn't we tell them about the vampires, Martha?" Plane takes off.
"They'll just have to figure it out."
"We didn't warn about high heels on the slide either."

Saw it yesterday. Not as bad as it could have been and not as good as it should have been. A serviceable little horror. I would have done it differently, but that's the story of my unfulfilled life, and the fact my brain has a vampire for a room-mate.

[TimO]

What a Way to Go!

I'd never heard of this before, but it's a remarkably good film, and a very enjoyable (slightly) black comedy. For a film that starred a huge number of famous celebrities, namely Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings and Dick Van Dyke, it's quite surprising that it seems to have almost disappeared. Admittedly it was made in 1964, but plenty of films from that era and before, are still very well known.

The trailer really does the film a disservice, but I guess that we're now used to far better trailers. It manages to include many of the important points, in a way that looks rather boring and unimaginative. The film is actually quite clever, with several genres spoofed within tiny subplots, and most of the cast have stirling performances, with maybe just a little bit too much cheese on some occasions.

Shirley MacLaine wears a lot of dresses, and this film was amongst one of the 35 Oscar nominations that Edith Head had for Best Costume Design (she won eight of them!). Apparently Edith Head is often considered to be one of the inspirations for Edna Mode in the two Incredibles films.

Trailer on YouTube : What a Way to Go!

[Gattopardo]

Watched Willys Wonderland - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v27rfaoB2Y

Actually quite entertaining.

[redshift]

Zack Snyder's recut of Justice League.

Oh.

I'm so glad that I've seen what is apparently the better version. I dread to think how awful the theatrical cut was, when this one - the whole bum-numbing 4 bloody hours of it - was just achingly dreadful. I know superhero films aren't art, but usually they are at least vaguely entertaining and occasionally have the saving grace of being funny. This managed to be both not-art and not-entertaining, as well as managing to hit the hat trick by being not-funny.

[Jakob]

The Green Knight..(In a real cinema!!)

While I knew it wouldn't be mainstream, it was still a lot...different!. Still not sure if it was good or not, but certainly a breath of fresh air.

[T42]

Blood Red Sky, says my email from Netflix.

They'll probably mess it up like Snakes on a Plane, of course, but I still think that's the best tagline ever.

The weird thing is that if you ever listen right to the end of the safety briefing they tell you precisely what to do should your seatmate turn out to be a vampire mid-flight. But no one in the entire history of flying, has ever paid attention to the end of those briefings. Even the Wright brothers were "ok, whatever, we get it, crash into water, blow into the tube, can we take off now?"

"Shouldn't we tell them about the vampires, Martha?" Plane takes off.
"They'll just have to figure it out."
"We didn't warn about high heels on the slide either."

Saw it yesterday. Not as bad as it could have been and not as good as it should have been. A serviceable little horror. I would have done it differently, but that's the story of my unfulfilled life, and the fact my brain has a vampire for a room-mate.

Being a little hard of hearing, I've been watching this with closed captions.

(click to show/hide)

I've just reached the bit where she's ripped a chunk out of the boss hijacker's trapezoid  and driven a knife through his heart with much gargling, heel-banging and ketchup.

Closed caption: [Mom panting].

Exit me, cackling.

[andyoxon]

Monsters of Man.

Military AI robots int jungle.  Pretty violent, with some familiar cliches, but a fair bit better than expected (~55% on Rotten Tomatoes) - develops some decent tension.

[rogerzilla]

Mel Brooks' The Producers.  It's slow in places but I laughed like a drain at the "Springtime For Hitler" routine.

[Jaded]

"and Germany"

[ian]

The Suicide Squad, a remake of the first one which suffered greatly under the burden of not being very good. It's an improvement, cast in a more Deadpool mode. Entertaining enough, if by the book, you could see the end from the beginning, but if you've ever wanted to see a man with polka dot-related superpowers fight a giant alien starfish, you're in the honey.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

"The Mauritanian"

".. a 2021 legal drama film based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was held for fourteen years (from 2002 to 2016) without charge in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison. "

Jodie  Foster at her best.

[nobby]

Green Book - excellent film

[Nick H.]

Inseminoid. British space horror. One of the worst films ever made. It's an Alien ripoff, made 2 years later. Chiselhurst caves are the alien planet. Judy Geeson has her personal space invaded by something hideous. The wardrobe was sourced in ten minutes from a motorbike shop, with accessories from B&Q. It's on Pirate Bay. Only 800MB, so I could probably send it around as an email attachment?

[andyoxon]

A Quiet Place II

Very good.  Prequel & sequel.  I think better that the first, and that was good too.

[orienteer]

Silence, a Martin Scorsese film based on a novel by Shūsaku Endō about Jesuit missionaries in Japan in the 17th century. Was on BBC4 last night (26th August). The novel itself was based on historical research.

Quite harrowing to watch, but reinforces my personal rejection of religions in general.

[nobby]

The Missing - Cate Blanchette and Tommy Lee Jones
Not too bad.

[Kim]

CODA (2021)

Broadly agree with the reviews:  Director gets a cookie.  Could have done with a less cliched plot.

I thought Troy Kotsur was excellent.

[T42]

Poltergeist. 40 years on, still a load of shit.

[ian]

Go towards the light, Carrie-Ann. Look crazy lady, a minute ago you told me not to, so make your mind up.

I always quite enjoyed Poltergeist. Slow by today's standards, of course, and – of course, a healthy reminder not to build your housing estates on an Indian burial ground if there's a flood plain available nearby.

Watched Boss Level on That Amazon, it sounded not so great from the blurb, but my curry was getting cold, actually turned out to be really very good. Sort of Groundhog Day meets the Edge of Tomorrow versus John Wick. Frank Grillo, a usual stalwart of low budget and straight-to-cable actioneers, splendidly deadpans and one-lines his way through, people get killed in many creative and bloody ways, and the situation sort of gets bloody resolved. Left me with a big smile pasted on my face. I had to explain 'boss level' to my wife though.

[ian]

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Not so big on the martial arts thing, but I gave this one a punt.

I dunno how Marvel do their casting, but they get it right every time, excellent. The plot was a bit exposition heavy, the usual toil of origin movies, but the fights were well done and the action paced, and they resisted any urge to stick a western actor in the mix (and kept with subtitles for a fair part of the movie). Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but there's one section, where Ben Kingsley reprises his role as the pretend terrorist, where honestly, I laughed so hard I cried. That alone was worth the entry price. How anyone kept a straight face during that scene, I have no idea.

Obviously, if you don't like Marvel superhero-ey things, you won't like it.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Not so big on the martial arts thing, but I gave this one a punt.

I dunno how Marvel do their casting, but they get it right every time, excellent. The plot was a bit exposition heavy, the usual toil of origin movies, but the fights were well done and the action paced, and they resisted any urge to stick a western actor in the mix (and kept with subtitles for a fair part of the movie). Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but there's one section, where Ben Kingsley reprises his role as the pretend terrorist, where honestly, I laughed so hard I cried. That alone was worth the entry price. How anyone kept a straight face during that scene, I have no idea.

Obviously, if you don't like Marvel superhero-ey things, you won't like it.

I watched this with my son - first time in cinema for a really long time.

Felt a bit 'meh'. Maybe I'm becoming jaded to blockbuster films. 'Teh big evil' didn't have much of a build up or impact tbh.

Casting was again, inspired. Michelle Yeoh kind of phoned in her performance though. Ben seemed to enjoy himself.

The sidekick was used very well for comedic effect and exposition.


LAst night I watched Blood Red Sky on my phone. Yeah, I know. Ignoring the dubbing/lipsynch issues, it was pretty decent. Good characters and not entirely clear how it would end until the last few minutes.

[ian]

It's a valid point the big evil was a bit of shoo-in, but yeah, it was an origin story. The humour carried it, and yes, Katy (the side-kick) was one of the best things in the movie.

I think Michele Yeoh is contractually obliged to appear in any and every movie with Chinese characters, though for a change she wasn't the token Asian character.

I will never think of Planet of the Apes the same again after that scene though.

[T42]

LAst night I watched Blood Red Sky on my phone. Yeah, I know. Ignoring the dubbing/lipsynch issues, it was pretty decent. Good characters and not entirely clear how it would end until the last few minutes.

I watched that a couple of weeks back, but when they began talking about doing something or other with a

(click to show/hide)

bomb, at which point I thought it's going to be either red-wire/green-wire or sublime self-sacrifice

and ICBA watching the rest.

[mrcharly-YHT]

LAst night I watched Blood Red Sky on my phone. Yeah, I know. Ignoring the dubbing/lipsynch issues, it was pretty decent. Good characters and not entirely clear how it would end until the last few minutes.

I watched that a couple of weeks back, but when they began talking about doing something or other with a

(click to show/hide)

bomb, at which point I thought it's going to be either red-wire/green-wire or sublime self-sacrifice

and ICBA watching the rest.

(click to show/hide)

Neither

Something of a slight surprise. 2min before the final scene, it was obvious how this would play out.

Up until that point, it wasn't clear.

[mrcharly-YHT]

The Suicide Squad

Much, much, much better than the previous attempt. Some good humour, occasionally very dark.  Margo Robbie gets to flesh out Quinn a lot more, which is good. Multiple good performances, actually.

(click to show/hide)

Play 'who will die next' bingo. Some unexpected surprises.