What was the last film you watched?

[closetleftie]

"Alice: through the looking glass" with the kids, yesterday. OK, actually. Kids enjoyed to too.

[LEE]

The people who create things are always the worst editors. That includes film directors. Even if it's good and worthwhile, sometimes it deserves to be cut and benefits from the knife.

Tarantino is a prime example of this. Several of his films, the majority actually, suffer from chronic "bloat".

He needs to hand over to an experienced Editor.

[Andrew]

PLEASE don't start theTarantino debate 

 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Going back to Captain America for a minute, surely his costume, with its cute, close-fitting helmet that stretches so tightly over his perfectly American features, is one of the earliest media representations of a gimp suit.

[citoyen]

Election

Even funnier than I remember it. Reese Witherspoon is brilliant. Matthew Broderick is briliant. Alexander Payne is a genius.

[fuzzy]

Road to Roubaix, a documentary about Paris Roubaix, centering on he 2007 edition. Quite an atmospheric effort apart from Lance Armstrong waxing lyrical and being sad about how he never played.

[ian]

I did attempt to watch The Hateful Eight on the plane. Failed. Partly I findly the entire Tarantino schtick a bit old and indulgent now and, as said, it needs to be edited. In a few more years he'll be making movies that last the entirety of a long haul flight. We'll have to make planes that fly to the moon just to air his movies on the seat back. Plus, I'm getting old and soft and find the level of violence a bit discomforting. I tuned out and watched Take Shelter instead, one of those movies I'd never heard of, but quite enjoyable. The sort of movie that Sixth Sense guy used to make before he hired a biplane and used it to fly over sharks.

Not a movie, but my topic fidelity is traditionally lacking and I can't be bothered starting a things you've watched on planes thread (which would just be the edifying spectacle of me writing for myself), but I finally finished off Fear the Walking Dead and yup, it turned into stupid people soap opera with zombies. I was hoping they'd slow it down and explore the outbreak but it's run headlong into the usual territory. I'll skip season 2. I also watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which sounded awful (and I'm still suffering flashbacks from my 37 second exposure to Catherine Tate's Nan) but was actually quite amusing, though I confess I fell in love with lead actress. I'm also worried that I've really started to like musical comedy. I blame my wife for the exposure. I found the words 'shall we book something on Broadway' dripping out of mouth the other week when my wife was holiday planning. I saw her smile, the one that said my work here is done.

[T42]

I first saw A Fish called Wanda on a plane in the 80s.  There was something wondrous about a entire 747-ful exploding with laughter when John Cleese said "Fuck off, pigs".

[Andrew]

I'm going to see Woody Allen's Cafe Society tomorrow night.  I expect I've seen it before.

[Ruthie]

X-Men Apocolypse: 144 minutes. Just say no, directors.

Just got back from seeing this.

I was so bored.

[T42]

Network, 1976. Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch. Oh, and Robert Napalm-in-the-Morning Duvall, who was already mostly bald.

Really, really good.

[Andrew]

I'm going to see Woody Allen's Cafe Society tomorrow night.  I expect I've seen it before.

I was right. I had seen it before. Jesse Eisenberg got to deliver Woody's lines this time and, in fairness, he did a good job. It's a pleasant enough film; stylish, well shot, ably acted and not without a charm- and, of course, some amusing self-deprecating lines. But it falls a long way short of being a great film, or even the best Allen movie.

On the plus side, when I got home Repulsion was on (there's a Roman Polanski season on one of the channels). From Allen's amusing sexual angst to seriously deranged sexual obsession/disgust. Catherine Deneuve is simply brilliant and carries the film, acting with her eyes and past an otherwise blank expression (take note Kristen Stewart; whose 'less is more' style in Cafe Society shows that 'less' is sometimes only that). Deneuve goes from angst to full throttle whack job before your eyes. A very disturbing, and utterly brilliant, movie imho.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The Accidental Death of a Cyclist.  A film documentary about Marco Pantani whom we all remember as the Pirate.

Disregarding a tendency to exonerate Pantani from his own actions it was a good insight into the murky world (of 1990s pro cycling) he entered and the reasons why doping must be eliminated from the sport.  The death of the cyclist maybe referred to the fact that Pantani would have been a great rider to have around if there had not been doping.  Whilst Armstrong is a villain, Pantani was just another sad fool especially with the example of Tom Simpson to look back on.

[T42]

Kill List. Ben Wheatley must have had a lot of fun. Model of clarity beside A Field in England.

[caerau]

Well seeing as I have a deep cultural connection with and love of the genre of Gangsta Rap (er not.  )  but I had a mate long ago who with great relish told me all about the group N.W.A their criminal records and their song 'Fuck da Police'  I felt I had to watch 'Straight outta Compton' this weekend.


Really really good film as it happens.  Excellent in fact.  I suppose Ice Cube has form with Boyz 'n the Hood as an actor although he was just a producer of this.  Of course I've since found out that they reformed in 2015 so this wouldn't have been a coincidence.  Nevertheless, as I said, really good stuff.

[T42]

From Dusk till Dawn. Quite.

[LEE]

I'm going to see Woody Allen's Cafe Society tomorrow night.  I expect I've seen it before.

I was right. I had seen it before. Jesse Eisenberg got to deliver Woody's lines this time and, in fairness, he did a good job.

Coincidentally I saw Eisenberg on "The Last Leg" at the weekend and commented that he's be perfect to play Woody Allen in a Biopic.

[TimO]

Deadpool

I'm sure there are plenty of people here who will hate it, but I like the utterly irrelevant stupidity of him repeatedly breaking the fourth wall.  It's a fairly violent film, and links into both the X-Men and Avenger universes, which is kind of odd since the rights are owned by different film studios (20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios respectively, I think).

[caerau]

I think that's not quite accurate.  Fox certainly own something but from what I read a while back, Marvel got around this (after nearly going bust as Fox gave them a pittance in the initial contract) by looking at their massive range of characters and realising they could just use their other characters.  Perhaps they have both moved on to a more sensible situation these days...?

[TimO]

Yes, I also vaguely recall reading something about how they had come to an agreement about using some elements of each others characters, but in a limited fashion.  They only have two lesser known X-Men (well, one is a woman) in this film, and at one point Deadpool does make a sarcastic comment about that, so it may well reflect a limitation of what they can do with Fox's characters.

[T42]

The Motorcycle Diaries, the story of Ernesto Guevara's trip round South America with his cousin, back before he became Ché. Excellent.

[Andrew]

Speaking of motorcycle films, I saw the tail end of The World's Fastest Indian yesterday. It sufficiently interested me to flag it as one to watch in the future. I was impressed with Hopkin's accent.

The Southland accent is not your typical (i.e. as most people might know it) Kiwi accent. Most people think of the Kiwi accent as being a bit like the Australian one but it is different - and very different the further south you go. A lot of Scots made their home in Southland and so the accent is influenced by that - notably the rolling R sound - yet it also has some of the distinctive Kiwi vowel sounds. For me, cool to listen to!

[pcolbeck]

Machette 2 - when i woke up in the middle of the night. That was quite odd ....

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The Armstrong Lie.

Very good and convincing picture of our local monster. 

[T42]

1911.  Mistake. The Chinese revolution from beginning to end in 2 hours, with history captions on-screen at the same time as subtitles that disappeared almost as soon as they appeared.  And at the end a chunk of potted praise for the enlightened management of the Communist Party. 5/10.