What was the last film you watched?

[ian]

Finally got around to the latest Star Trek. It was fell into the OK bucket with a minor splash. Plenty of boom-bang, a reasonably witty script, and the casting and interplay between Kirk, Spock, and Bones is still exquisite. Simon Pegg as Scotty just doen't seem to work unfortunately. The Otter bloke was suitably bad. The story was a bit lacklustre though. Enterprise, as ever, lost her NCD. The 3D was pointless and I think they only levered in about one actual 3D scene, and I will mention that Hollywood starts don't quite look so pretty when their mugs are blown up to IMAXian proportions. God alone knows what one of us normal mortals would look like. Facial pores big enough to hide the Millennium Falcon in, I'd expect.

Saw Zero Dark Thirty on the plane. I probably can't agree that glamourised torture, it seemed to be reasonably ambivalent on the matter, which I expect was the point since her earlier films ploughed the same field. Anyway, better than expected.

Itching to get my hands on those Pacific Rim tickets. IMAX 3D monster vs. robot mayhem. Man of Steel first though.

[Littlesox]

"I'm not scared"

Saw this on TV when I was away last week. Beautiful filmed Italian movie set in the hottest summer of the 70s about a group of kids in a poor farming area and a boy kidnapped by a gang that one of their fathers is part of and kept in a hole in the ground for ransom.

We watched this last year.

Mesmerising, and highly recommended.

[Littlesox]

Dream House, starring Mr and Mrs James Bond.

Not what we expected, and really rather good.

[spindrift]

Mr and Mrs James Bond were furious about the trailer, there were some editorial fall-outs on that film.

[Hillbilly]

A Royal Affair.

Overview: A very good Danish period drama set at the time of the enlightenment, brimming with court intrigue.

Pros: The script and the performances are excellent, giving a real sense of the period and the politics of the day.  The cinematography is excellent, in particular the external shots.

Cons: Although based on a true story, the power shifts from the court run by and for the nobles to a hegemony for citizens felt slightly at odds with the development of a love triangle.  At 2 hours and 17 minutes, and subtitled, it requires a bit of concentration to keep track of the various threads (not one for having on in the background).

[spindrift]

Behind The Candelabra. It's Soderburgh, so you get lots of shots of people walking through lobbies with the camera at a low angle, but very funny and tender in places:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/NO5pOnVL_5k&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/NO5pOnVL_5k&rel=1</a>

[Andrew]

Be Kind, Rewind - a lovely, silly film with Jack Black, Mia Farrow and Danny Glover. I was reminded of Cinema Paradiso, only this is much much sillier!

[essexian]

Stone Roses: Made of Stone.

For those of a certain age, the Stone Roses were one of those bands who meant the world: take the bloke who, to get a ticket for their Warrington gig (the first in 18 or so years) was happy to leave a hole in the wall of the house he was renovating to queue up, or the deputy head teacher to tried to bribe a part time teacher with a full time job for their tickets: people would do just about anything to see Ian, John, Mani and Reni.

Then of course there was the Spike Island gig…. Our generations Woodstock (which I missed due to being unemployed and broke) and the “attack” on Silvertones offices (oh how we laughed at the photos in the MNE) without even thinking about the music. And what music!

The film itself was made by a fan and it shows! Lots of interviews with other fans, with the band and various other hangers on, along with the some songs from the Warrington gig (it really reminded me of Morrissey’s first gigs after leaving The Smiths) and the Heaton Park gig.

Overall, I really enjoyed feeling 20 odd years younger for the evening. My wife was less impressed thinking the first half dragged a bit. Whatever, but I feel you may find it difficult to argue with how uplifting the excepts from the live shows were.

If you were a Roses fan, or a fan of indie music from the middle 80’s to the mid 90’s, it’s a film well worth seeing IMHO.

[Hillbilly]

Cosmopolis

Croenenberg written and directed, this is an attempt at a current social commentary that is interesting but falls a little flat of its ambition.  Robert Pattison (ask any teenage girl...) plays an otherwordly corporate vampire, who keeps reality at a distance (wonder why they cast him) as reality closes in on him.  Told largely from the interior of his limosine, his journey moves to its inevitable conclusion (or does it - ambiguous ending ahoy!)

I rather enjoyed it, but I suspect some will find it rather cold and calculated, like the main character.

[Hillbilly]

Dumb and Dumber.

A high point in American humor. 

[woollypigs]

The Guard

Dark humour, swearing, Irish - a in all a good flick.

[tiermat]

Last night I watched Gangster Squad, Nick Nolte and Sean Penn doing what they do best, i.e. NN is a rubber faced cop hell bent on cleaning the town up and SP is an ex-boxer.  Good, all in all.

[Hillbilly]

Amour

Powerful film about old age.  Not one for the laffs, but incredibly poignant stuff.

Made me realise.  Yet another great French film - why is it they are knocking out some brilliant films at the moment, whereas the UK is variously aping bad Hollywood or rehashing bleak social drama so beloved of Ken Loach and his left leaning ilk. 

I realise we get la creme of the French output, and there are no doubt some right chiens in their output, but I can list many fantastique films from France but struggle to recall more than two fingers worth from the UK.  Ho hum.

[LindaG]

Quartet.

Set in a retirement home for musicians.

A stellar cast:  Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon.

The age of the characters in the film was a kind of backdrop to the story.  And there was some nice music.  The 'Vissi d'arte' was really quite moving when 'sung' by someone older than your conventional Tosca. 

The story itself was nice though, but I think the film seemed somehow too short - there wasn't time for the necessary character development.  Maybe it was a problem with the editing.

A pleasant diversion.  Made me smile.  6/10

[tiermat]

Re-watching Land and Freedom, a Ken Loach film.

I like it (as you can maybe tell by the fact I am watching it for the third time!)

[Kim]

InnerSpace

The blatant misogyny and disablism have dated even worse than the racial stereotypes in Short Circuit.  Not to mention the hair.  And I'm old enough not to care about the anatomy they got wrong.

But the pod computer voice is still sexy as ever, pre-CGI special effects are just *better* and of course the immortal line "Jack... it worked.  You just digested the bad guy." never gets old.


We seem long overdue for another remake of Fantastic Voyage, actually...

[spesh]

We seem long overdue for another remake of Fantastic Voyage, actually...

IMDb is your friend - and if the earlier posting dates for the related topics on the IMDb message board are any guide, it's currently stuck in one of the circles of Development Hell...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1087521/board/threads/?p=4

[Andrew]

Taking of Pelham 123

The new version (can't say remake). I have memories of the original, I saw it at the pictures when I was a kid. I remember liking it hugely, even at my young age. I particularly remember the 'Gesundheit' clincher.

Ok, the new version - true enough to the old storyline but revamped for a new age, so pretty much a different film. And it was going great guns (unfortunate choice of words under the circumstances) but then it lost the plot in the final 20 minutes and became plain switchoffable. How could a film offer so much just to throw it away with crass stupidity? A crap 'hero' ending with obligatory (offensive I'd say) shoot out.

[tiermat]

Finished watch Land and Freedom, noticing bits I hadn't previously.

Then I moved onto Cloud Atlas slow, very very slow, to start, but then it picks up as the threads start intermingling.

Haven't finished watching it yet as I fell asleep!

[Steph]

I watched two films last night. One was a gentle, quite sweet sort-of-comedy called 'Skeletons', via iPlayer. The other was shit. It was called "Stranded", but it should have been called Shit.

I picked it up for something to watch on the cheaper DVD stacks at the supermarket, and within five minutes I was asking myself why. From the beginning, for example, it was stated clearly that the waste product of human respiration is CO. Monoxide. Which apparently gives you hallucinations and psychosis. There were other meaningless 'technical science' comments, clearly intended to make the film look advanced.
Plot crap, premise stupid (and multiply ripped off from earlier and better films), effects crap, acting crap, and, most of all, I was left without my standard ability to scream "Why are you being so STUPID?" at the actors because they were clearly bereft of any intelligence whatsoever.

Shite. Utter shite.

[Steph]

...and then yesterday I saw the Liberace bio-pic. A real gem!

[spindrift]

I went right off Michael Douglas in the eighties when he kept casting himself in films he produced. Loved him in The Game and Falling Down and in Liberace he is brilliant, it's quite a warm-hearted film, and nice to see Debbie Reynolds with a huge prosthetic nose. Rob Lowe nearly walks off with the film under his arm, but Damon and Douglas are so good he's eclipsed.

[mattc]

'A Serious Man' - Coen Brothers 2009 maybe?

It was on the telly a few weeks ago, took me by surprise as I don't remember hearing anything about this on general release.

Possibly because it's rubbish. Completely inoffensive, just not interesting and only very occasionally amusing. I couldn't see any point to it whatsoever.

(The highlight was spotting Howard from Big Bang Theory as a junior rabbi. Yup.)

[Chris S]

Yesterday: Flight (Denzel Washington). Utterly not what I was expecting. Really quite good  (forgiven for the vomit scene - flying an airliner inverted pretty much makes that a given).

Today: Avatar. I've watched this many many times. On Blu-Ray, it's an experience - especially once the bio-luminescence kicks off. Oh, and that is one Big Fucking Tree.

[Wascally Weasel]

High Fidelity - one of those films that I enjoy more if I don't watch it too often.