What was the last film you watched?

[jsabine]

The Illusionist.  Not the Edward Norton vehicle but a delicate animated film about the declining fortunes of a stage magician. Mostly set in late 1950s Edinburgh, with great depictions of the city as MrsT and I knew it in the late 60s. Done by the same bunch as Les Triplettes de Belleville.

I saw this years ago (I think I may have seen it in the cinema that features in the film?). Delicate is a good word for it.

Yes, it was pleasing to see the old Cameo in... bugger... Tolcross?  We saw quite a lot of good stuff there.

I just had a look at Tolcross on Google Streetview. What a bloody shame. There used to be some nice wee shops where that glass heap is now, including a great tobacconist with some unusual pipes.

The Illusionist is lovely, isn't it - I think I saw it in the Cameo too ...

As for Tollcross, isn't the glass heap basically where Goldberg's department store used to be? Not sure how many wee shops there were in the immediate vicinity, though in fairness I was too young to be paying much attention to tobacconists.

[jsabine]

Terminator: Dark Fate

Finally, a Terminator 2 sequel that isn't awful.  What it lacks in originality (which is most things) it makes up for in Sarah Connor being badass.  Does what it says on the tin.

I reckon it even passes the Bechdel test ... We saw it on the big screen in Leicester Square just after it came out - hugely entertaining, and I think succeeded because it doesn't take itself at all seriously. Self referential in a really knowing way, and all the better for it.

[jsabine]

1917.   Brilliantly shot, well acted & exciting.  Some suspension of disbelief required.  If British soldiers were as indestructible & lucky as one of the characters we'd have won in short order. 

I found it all a bit meh - beautifully shot and put together, but the story was too much bollocks for me to take.

Vital message to send, so you invoke emotional blackmail to provoke individual derring-do rather than, er, getting a flyboy to drop a message? A convoy that suddenly, silently appears on the very ground that can only be crossed by a daring individual mission? A shot that tracks out of what was, earlier, an empty window into a newfound burning townscape? A dystopian urban inferno (and trip to an otherworldly underworld) that seems to owe more to magical realism than to, er, realism? Rising from a river into a song-filled glade (see magical realism, again)? And then split-second arrival timing? All just a little too much, I felt.

[T42]

The Illusionist.  Not the Edward Norton vehicle but a delicate animated film about the declining fortunes of a stage magician. Mostly set in late 1950s Edinburgh, with great depictions of the city as MrsT and I knew it in the late 60s. Done by the same bunch as Les Triplettes de Belleville.

I saw this years ago (I think I may have seen it in the cinema that features in the film?). Delicate is a good word for it.

Yes, it was pleasing to see the old Cameo in... bugger... Tolcross?  We saw quite a lot of good stuff there.

I just had a look at Tolcross on Google Streetview. What a bloody shame. There used to be some nice wee shops where that glass heap is now, including a great tobacconist with some unusual pipes.

The Illusionist is lovely, isn't it - I think I saw it in the Cameo too ...

As for Tollcross, isn't the glass heap basically where Goldberg's department store used to be? Not sure how many wee shops there were in the immediate vicinity, though in fairness I was too young to be paying much attention to tobacconists.

It's strange: I must have been through Tollcross a hundred times between 1965 and 1972 but I have no memory of Goldberg's great lump of a building. I just spoke to MrsT and she has no memory of it either.  But I think I know why: I found a fuzzy photo on a Facebook account called Lost Edinburgh, and it shows Goldberg's frontage in the background, with a building-site fence between it and the clock.  I think the picture was taken when the old shops were being demolished to enlarge the intersection.  Other bits of Edinburgh have been similarly remodelled - I can hardly recognize the area up round the University Union any more.  Whole streets have been removed.

ETA: I do remember Goldberg's now, and I'm right. As you drove through Tollcross and up Lauriston Place there was a great lump on the left, but you passed the old shops first.

[ian]

Terminator: Dark Fate

Finally, a Terminator 2 sequel that isn't awful.  What it lacks in originality (which is most things) it makes up for in Sarah Connor being badass.  Does what it says on the tin.

I reckon it even passes the Bechdel test ... We saw it on the big screen in Leicester Square just after it came out - hugely entertaining, and I think succeeded because it doesn't take itself at all seriously. Self referential in a really knowing way, and all the better for it.

It was basically the 'greatest hits' collection from T1 and T2. Didn't make up for the unmitigated awful that was the other sequels, of course, though I'm unclear why they can't send someone back from the future to unmake those.

[toontra]

I found it all a bit meh - beautifully shot and put together, but the story was too much bollocks for me to take.

Indeed.  The token woman-and-baby scene (where he just happens to have some milk - the only thing that will keep the baby alive!) was the shark-jumping moment for me.

Also, although I'm sure he's a nice chap, the lead actor isn't actually a very convincing actor.  For me the vocal delivery, let alone the accent, was rather stilted.

[Nuncio]

1917.   Brilliantly shot, well acted & exciting.  Some suspension of disbelief required.  If British soldiers were as indestructible & lucky as one of the characters we'd have won in short order. 

I found it all a bit meh - beautifully shot and put together, but the story was too much bollocks for me to take.

Vital message to send, so you invoke emotional blackmail to provoke individual derring-do rather than, er, getting a flyboy to drop a message? A convoy that suddenly, silently appears on the very ground that can only be crossed by a daring individual mission? A shot that tracks out of what was, earlier, an empty window into a newfound burning townscape? A dystopian urban inferno (and trip to an otherworldly underworld) that seems to owe more to magical realism than to, er, realism? Rising from a river into a song-filled glade (see magical realism, again)? And then split-second arrival timing? All just a little too much, I felt.

Well, a bit late. Did I miss a good reason for how the letter stayed dry?

[T42]

1917.   Brilliantly shot, well acted & exciting.  Some suspension of disbelief required.  If British soldiers were as indestructible & lucky as one of the characters we'd have won in short order. 

I found it all a bit meh - beautifully shot and put together, but the story was too much bollocks for me to take.

Vital message to send, so you invoke emotional blackmail to provoke individual derring-do rather than, er, getting a flyboy to drop a message? A convoy that suddenly, silently appears on the very ground that can only be crossed by a daring individual mission? A shot that tracks out of what was, earlier, an empty window into a newfound burning townscape? A dystopian urban inferno (and trip to an otherworldly underworld) that seems to owe more to magical realism than to, er, realism? Rising from a river into a song-filled glade (see magical realism, again)? And then split-second arrival timing? All just a little too much, I felt.

Well, a bit late. Did I miss a good reason for how the letter stayed dry?

If it was French it would have been in a protective envelope.

[andrewc]

Written on War Office issued Izal , that stuff doesn't absorb anything....

[T42]

Shiny!

[jsabine]

Did I miss a good reason for how the letter stayed dry?

Probably the opposite of the reason the map got so soaked in blood it wasn't even worth trying to open it up.

(He did put the letter in his tin box though, didn't he? Mind you, we saw that box so many times I was convinced it was going to stop a bullet for him.)

[sg37409]

Just Mercy

Excellent: based on story of a lawyer pioneering legal aid to death row prisoners in Alabama. It was shocking to think this story happened in the 80's and 90's.

[andyoxon]

Terminator: Dark Fate

Finally, a Terminator 2 sequel that isn't awful.  What it lacks in originality (which is most things) it makes up for in Sarah Connor being badass.  Does what it says on the tin.

I reckon it even passes the Bechdel test ... We saw it on the big screen in Leicester Square just after it came out ...

I generally don't get to see films of this genre on the big screen, as no one else is interested.     Not going to go on me todd.   

[ElyDave]

Did I miss a good reason for how the letter stayed dry?

Probably the opposite of the reason the map got so soaked in blood it wasn't even worth trying to open it up.

(He did put the letter in his tin box though, didn't he? Mind you, we saw that box so many times I was convinced it was going to stop a bullet for him.)

that was my thought too, brave hero gets shot by the dastardly boche but the message still gets through. 

The only bit that was a real twist for me was that the message-carrying brother got killed, whereas I'd built up to the message carrying brother getting there to find he was too late and his brother had gone over top and killed.

Implausibility of plot aside, I think it rendered my imagination of the general futility and abominable conditions very well, alongside the sheer destruction from fighting across the same ground again and again.  I'm sure T42 will be along in a minute, but as I understand it there are still areas of former front line that cannot be farmed due to the land contamination from unexploded ordnance slowly decomposing

[sg37409]

Jojo Rabbit.   Very enjoyable.  Funny, tragic, heart warming story of a young boy living with his mum in a german town at the end of WW2.  Scarlett Johansson was brilliant, as was the young boy (name escapes me). 

[jsabine]

The Lighthouse

Um, yeah. Bit arty, bit spooky, bit B&W, bit 35mm - and actually quite good at all of those until 2/3 of the way through.

Then for at least half an hour (but felt like twice that) it was unedifying bollocks, and if we hadn't been sat at the wrong end of a row I'd probably have walked out.

We watched it so you don't have to... or at any rate, sit on an aisle so you can leave after the seagull gets it.

[Robh]

Walter Mosley's ""Easy Rawlins" books.  Starting in the late 40's and running to the 60's they show a very different side of American life, where being born Black means living with the constant knowledge that the police can & will kill you with impunity if you upset them.  Sadly only the first book "Devil In a Blue Dress" was filmed.

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_in_a_Blue_Dress_(film)

A very enjoyable film, with a brilliant soundtrack, which is well worth checking out.

[Robh]

Two Popes. I was talked into watching it. I have an irrational dislike of Anthony Hopkins, but I could watch Jonathan Price all night. Some of the camera work was irritating, the dialogue was good (though the subject matter might mean more to others than it did to me), and the director did well to bring out the differing personalities of the two leads - though that was probably the reason the film got made in the first place, duh. The casting is good (the young Jonathan Price is very good) but its interesting to consider if/how it might have worked had the two lead roles been reversed.

[spindrift]

Pryce is right.

[spindrift]

If Brad Pitt beats Hopkins, Pacino and De Niro to Best Actor at the oscars we all may as well just lie down.

[spindrift]

1917

Reminded me of Dunkirk because it's technically brilliant but unengaging. There's barely any character exposition and the guest appearances from people like Dumbledore Snafflepants seem crow-barred in. Nice to see Daniel Mays again, who was of course at Dunkirk in Atonement.

[rogerzilla]

London Fields.  Notorious (disowned by many of the participants and almost never saw the light of day) adaptation of my favourite book.  Actually not a bad effort, with very good casting*.  I can see how it would be a very hard sell to anyone who hadn't read the book.

Loses all the beauty of the original prose but that's the same for any film of a book.

*cameos by Bobby George and Andy Fordham in the darts final!

[Chris S]

We have Chariots of Fire on.

I think fboab is swotting up on English society, post Brexit.

[Kim]

We have Chariots of Fire on.

I think fboab is swotting up on English society, post Brexit.

Ohdog.  We're not going to have to do Running, are we?

[Chris S]

We have Chariots of Fire on.

I think fboab is swotting up on English society, post Brexit.

Ohdog.  We're not going to have to do Running, are we?

Only if you went to Cambridge.