What was the last film you watched?

[tiermat]

After a marathon session catching up with Falling Skies (I have, over the last two weeks watched 3 series of it), I have switched to re-watching some movies that I know I enjoy, so this week I have watched:

District 9 (Get those fookin prawns, man)
The Dark Knight
The Big Lebowski and
Biutiful

I am a little bit filmed out now...

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Ex Machina

Weird allegorical(?) collage of techno-life fable, thingy.

Full frontal nudity but of course they are only robots.

Good acting and a fine ending.. 

[canny colin]

Testament of youth                                                                                                                              Don't even attempt to M.T.F.U  JUST Grab the Kleenex & go and see this beautiful , poignant film. About love,loss & so, so much more during the 1st world war . Based on the book by Vera Brittain.

[Ruthie]

Bicycle Dreams, about RAAM, and with Chris Hopkinson and his improvised neckwear.

Trying to document such an extraordinary event can't be easy, but they did it well, giving an insight into who the riders are, and the depths of suffering involved in riding this.  Riveting stuff.

[Ruthie]

Fastest Indian is a lovely film, he's a mean, argumentative old bugger but at the same time he just plays life with a straight bat, when he meets the trans woman I mean. Not remotely fazed. Polite and respectful, just not curious. It's cos of Hopkins, he was never less than believable.

... he just fixes and rides bikes and is polite with a very dry kiwi sense of humour. He's polite to people who are polite to him and if they're not at least he won't kill and eat them.

Funny, I didn't find him argumentative or mean, just the kind of person who has no interest in what anyone else thinks of him.  One of those people who see the world slightly differently from most people, who don't have quite the same priorities. 

[Kim]

The Missing Postman. James Bolam does a Teethgrinder . . .

*fires up youtube-dl*

That.

Delightfully entertaining.  I'm slightly concerned that the late 90s are starting to look dated, rather than normal and ordinary, though.

If there were a DVD release with subtitles I'd point ex-Postman Piers at it.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Testament of youth                                                                                                                              Don't even attempt to M.T.F.U  JUST Grab the Kleenex & go and see this beautiful , poignant film. About love,loss & so, so much more during the 1st world war . Based on the book by Vera Brittain.

My dad gave me the book to read years ago.   It sold big in the 1930s.  Shirley Williams was Vera Brittain's daughter and said her mother would have approved of the film.

[Torslanda]

The Missing Postman. James Bolam does a Teethgrinder . . .

*fires up youtube-dl*

That.

Delightfully entertaining.  I'm slightly concerned that the late 90s are starting to look dated, rather than normal and ordinary, though.

If there were a DVD release with subtitles I'd point ex-Postman Piers at it.

I've got the VHS from BBC Enterprises. Does anyone know how to put it on disc - given that we threw our VHS away some time ago? I don't know what we could do about subtitles . . .

[hillbilly]

Raid 2. 

Like The Raid, but with a big number two.

The first had the novelty of coming out of left field and grabbing the attention with its brutal energy and kinetic violence.  The sequel has the same spunk, but comes across as a series of wince inducing fight sequences strung together with a hackneyed plot.

Took my mind off the tedium of my tax return though...

[spindrift]

Fastest Indian is a lovely film, he's a mean, argumentative old bugger but at the same time he just plays life with a straight bat, when he meets the trans woman I mean. Not remotely fazed. Polite and respectful, just not curious. It's cos of Hopkins, he was never less than believable.

... he just fixes and rides bikes and is polite with a very dry kiwi sense of humour. He's polite to people who are polite to him and if they're not at least he won't kill and eat them.

Funny, I didn't find him argumentative or mean, just the kind of person who has no interest in what anyone else thinks of him.  One of those people who see the world slightly differently from most people, who don't have quite the same priorities.

Single-minded and ornery, mule-headed and stubborn. His neighbours nag him to mow the lawn so he sets fire to it and pisses on his tree. Hopkins said it's the best film he's done.

[jsabine]

Stark Raving Mad. Clubbing meets a bank job, a revenge heist with a refreshingly low body count. Unpromising timetabling in the small hours on Auntie, and I'd no real wish to see Seann William Scott reprise Stifler, but with low expectations set, it proved to be an almost perfect B-movie.

Day of the Jackal. How many Citroen DSs?

[Gus]

Big Hero 6

I was surpriced to find it better than expected(it's a Disney movie  )

[Kim]

The Postman (1997 Kevin Costner effort)

Continuing the theme of postman-related films, this one I'd been avoiding up till now.  And it turns out for good reason: It's basically a dry run for Waterworld.

Also, I'm getting a bit sick of USAnian habit of using contrived post-apocalyptic scenarios as an excuse to re-enact their civil war.  It wasn't even a very good civil war, but if you want to make a thing about it, do an alternate history or something.

Highlight was the scene where $evil_military_commander seems to be about to execute someone, but makes him burn a flag instead....and that's made out to be worse!?!  Lowlight was the scene in which they make clear that over the course of 30 years they've brought the country - if not the rest of the world - up to a level of at least 1980s technology, simply by merit of getting over the whole civil war thing, and having a postal service.

That's three hours I'm not getting back.  Waterworld was funnier.

[Ruthie]

Captain Phillips

It has been a while since a thriller actually had me on the edge of my seat. And Tom Hanks performance, particularly at the end is brilliant (As always)

An excellent film.  I'm glad I read 'Long Walk Home' by Jude Tebbut, who was kidnapped by Somalians, because she also gave some context to the Somalis' situation, and the petri dish of poverty, inequality, corruption and injustice that is the source of such crimes.  If that's an accurate portrayal of what happened to Phillips he must be a very, very brave man indeed, and deserving of being the captain of a ship.  Talk about functioning under pressure.

The thing I'll take away from this film was the pirates' portrayal of what desperation really looks like.  When the state you live in has failed, when you are surrounded by real poverty, what do you do? 


I don't know what I'd do in Phillips' position.  I don't know what I'd do as the breadwinner in a Somali family, either.  Thought provoking and well made.

[ian]

Kingsman: The Secret Service which I was a bit hesitant about because I've become a bit discomforted with some of the hyper-violence in some movies, and Kick-Ass was one of those. It was very violent but done with more cartoonistic glee and there's one standout scene that whilst gory is done so impressively, I can forgive it. Let's just say Colin Firth never did that in Bridget Jones movie.

Silly, certainly, sort of hovers around Bond, Flint, Avengers (with a nod to Pygmalion / My Fair Lady) pastiche and parody without ever setlling, but keeps itself airborne with enough demented energy for it to not matter all that much.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Mrs A. can't forgive Colin Firth for not having aged better since P&P!  Hence we might not get to see Kingsman..    

[tiermat]

So far this week:

The Dark Knight
Mar Adentro
Drive

The first is a favourite, the second needs another viewing to make any sense and the third, urm, err, yeah.

[lisat]

The Descendents, I enjoyed it and now want to go to the Hawaiian Islands.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Mrs A. can't forgive Colin Firth for not having aged better since P&P!  Hence we might not get to see Kingsman..

We did watch Kingsman.  Very entertaining.  The violence was unrelenting although extremely hygenic. It's undoubtedly a p1ss take of the earnest, child-like spy/crime film efforts (Liam Neeson springs to mind!).  I would call it a satirical film in a lot of ways, but don't take it too seriously! 

[tiermat]

I watched Drive again and realised that there were a couple of things that made it all a bit meh for me.

1) It has Hellboy as a gangster, its just not right, or believable.
2) no way would a 300C be able to keep up with a Mustang
3) Ryan's Mustang hits another car, the lights go out. Next shot his lights are working again and, more importantly, there appears to be little or no damage to his mustang!

[Mr Larrington]

Have you ever counted the number of wheel trims that come off cars in the movies?  N_TRIMS is almost always greater that N_WHEELS.

And don't get me started on the motorbike tyres in "Mission Impossible 2".

[Wascally Weasel]

Mrs A. can't forgive Colin Firth for not having aged better since P&P!  Hence we might not get to see Kingsman..

We did watch Kingsman.  Very entertaining.  The violence was unrelenting although extremely hygenic. It's undoubtedly a p1ss take of the earnest, child-like spy/crime film efforts (Liam Neeson springs to mind!).  I would call it a satirical film in a lot of ways, but don't take it too seriously!

It ends on a bum note though.  I thought the ending was totally unnecessary.

[ian]

Mrs A. can't forgive Colin Firth for not having aged better since P&P!  Hence we might not get to see Kingsman..

We did watch Kingsman.  Very entertaining.  The violence was unrelenting although extremely hygenic. It's undoubtedly a p1ss take of the earnest, child-like spy/crime film efforts (Liam Neeson springs to mind!).  I would call it a satirical film in a lot of ways, but don't take it too seriously!

It ends on a bum note though.  I thought the ending was totally unnecessary.

It was clumsy. I presume it was an attempt on the old Bond-style endings, but fell flat. Judging by the reaction in the cinema I'm not sure why it didn't get edited out.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

What, the bit where he sorts out the low-life's in his local?  I think they should leave it in.

[ian]

What, the bit where he sorts out the low-life's in his local?  I think they should leave it in.

No, the literal bum note.