What was the last film you watched?

[mrcharly-YHT]

Despicable Me 2.

I want to live with those funny little henchmen, they are hilarious.

napple!

[Kim]

Lost Boys

Apparently a vital cultural reference that I'd missed, and nothing at all to do with Peter Pan.

[citoyen]

My wife brought home a DVD the other day containing a double bill of quirky 60s gems: The London Nobody Knows and Les Bicyclettes De Belsize.

The former is a documentary in which James Mason wanders round the back streets of London, pointing out and and passing comment on interesting features such as goldfish in public toilet cisterns and meths-swilling tramps fighting. A lot of it is filmed around the area now known as Bankside, near where I work, and most of it is barely recognisable. Fascinating. More info here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/nov/21/history

The latter is a bizarre piece of musical whimsy in which a dapper young chap rides his bicycle round the streets of North London searching for the love of his life, a young fashion model who he has fallen in love with after crashing into her image on a billboard. Quite amusing. Very much of its time. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Bicyclettes_de_Belsize (whoever authored that Wiki piece has a very strange notion of Mod fashion.)

Both are highly recommended, albeit more for curiosity value than anything else.

[Jakob]

Despicable Me 2.

I want to live with those funny little henchmen, they are hilarious.

While nowhere near as good as the first one, I still really enjoyed this one. I'm also a big fan of pose-to-pose animation, something Pixar/Disney abhors, so it was refreshing to see.

[Pickled Onion]

Sightseers

Watched this on the basis of a recommendation on here, and it is really quite excellent.

Down Terrace (also by Ben Wheatley) has arrived for this weekend's viewing.

It wasn't very good, had a bit of the Mike Leigh about it, but didn't quite hit the spot. Kill List for this weekend...

Django was much more enjoyable, if a little over-long. Not something to take too seriously though.

[LindaG]

LOTR - The Fellowship of the Ring.

For the first time in simply ages. My word, Boromir's last battle is very very good stuff. The arrows slamming into his chest as he musters his last half ounce of ATP. Cor it's lovely stuff that.

[Kathy]

Pacific Rim.

It failed the Bechdel Test. 

[Andrew]

Agora

I found it hard to follow in places, couldn't remember who was who etc, but a very good film if somewhat (perhaps) overly simplistic in places. An Alejandro Amenábar movie, Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a philosopher/mathematician in 4th century Greece.   The 'pagans' set to the Christians, Christians biff back and take over then later decide to have a pop at the Jews. Worth a watch if only to make the blood boil.

Surprisingly, given it's subject matter (religious fanaticalism and subjugation of women), maybe would have failed the  Bechdel test too.

[noisycrank]

Pacific Rim
the trailers seem to suggest it is basically big budget Power Rangers without the catchy theme tune (or the dodgy lycra). Am I wrong?

[mrcharly-YHT]

Despicable Me 2

It's funny. Some bits are very funny. We liked it. While walking home we had a serious discussion about how you'd make a quacomale hat

[ian]

Pacific Rim. I quite enjoyed it, but then my parents were in fact Japanese monster movies, so that was to be expected. Definitely Imax material for full on monster–robot battles, thought the 3D was (as usual) pointless.

Came in rocking, went out rocking, but left the middle a bit slack. They should have just turned all the dials up to 11 and left them there.

[BrianI]

Silent Running
I could have sworn that this was a film starring Charlton Heston.
Great film none the less! 

[Jakob]

Red 2. Had an evening to kill before flying home and that's really all it's good for. (Wasn't really expecting much else).

[citoyen]

Dredd.

Watched it last night as an antidote to the news, which was almost driving me to revolution.

Mixed feelings about this one. I loved the comics when I was a teenager and I must admit that the film is faithful to their spirit. It also has a well-structured narrative.

However, what I really didn't like was the number of shots that were clearly designed purely for the sake of 3D - things flying towards the camera in slo-mo etc. It got extremely tiresome after a while - and would have done even if I'd actually been watching in 3D. I also didn't like the excessive, gratuitous gore - oodles of exploding body parts in gloriously detailed cgi.

Not shocked by it, just not interested in that kind of thing. I'd prefer more story, tbh.

I think I have to accept that I'm no longer the target demographic for this kind of thing.

[Jakob]

I loved Dredd. Easily the best action movie of 2012. It's 1h20m (which is what an action movie should be), it keeps the characters relatively simple and similarly with the story. It's a movie I wished I had worked on. Sure, there's some shots that are made only to show of stereo, but there's only a few and they're still ok in mono.
 Also, Dredd behaved like Dredd, unlike the Stallone version which was truly horrible.
Fairly low budget movie (~$50mil), which failed at the box office, but did extremely well at DVD sales and they're now finally pushing for a sequel.

[citoyen]

It's 1h20m (which is what an action movie should be), it keeps the characters relatively simple and similarly with the story. ...
 Also, Dredd behaved like Dredd, unlike the Stallone version which was truly horrible.

Good points well made.

I initially thought there was too much assuming prior knowledge of the main character but on reflection I think it's more that they aren't labouring the mythology. Which is a good thing.

Even if you weren't familiar with the comics, you'd soon pick up an idea of Dredd's status and reputation within the Justice Dept (in much the same way you do in the first Dirty Harry film).

It feels like the introductory episode of a series as well, so good to know there's going to be a sequel. I hope they keep Karl Urban in the lead role.

[LindaG]

Robot and Frank.

Retired ex-con manipulates his healthcare robot to help him do one last cat burglary.

Sweet, funny and sad. And that robot knew every one of my tricks for dealing with grumpy old men. Scary.

[Kathy]

World's End.

 

More mature and reflective than any of the other Cornetto films.

[Wascally Weasel]

World's End.

 

More mature and reflective than any of the other Cornetto films.

Excellent - looking forward to this one!

[Kathy]

World's End.

 

More mature and reflective than any of the other Cornetto films.

Excellent - looking forward to this one!

Oh, and it has potential as a drink-along-a film game. And a much simpler one than Withnail & I. I'm not sure whether it should be done by declaring that everyone has to drink along with Simon Pegg's character, or whether it should be seen in a group of five and each person shadows one of the main characters (it's the person drinking along with Nick Frost's character I feel sorry for!), but there's definitely potential!

But see it sober first, to appreciate it as a film first.

[CrinklyLion]

Monsters University, in the company of an 11 year old, a 6 year old and a 5 year old. 

Utterly charming short beforehand.  We stayed to the end of the credits, and liked the slug, which the SmallestCub can do a very good impersonation of.  We were all disappointed that the glitterball scene from the trailer wasn't actually in the film.  And we all thought that having very nearly an hour of adverts and trailers was silly although I'm undecided if that was the deciding factor that caused the 5 year old to spend the last 20 minutes or so asking if we were nearly there yet.

SmallestCub's favourite bit was the "bit with the pink spiky things where they got all fat".  I don't think that constitutes a spoiler... The Smallest-Superhero-Next-Door liked the "scaring the grown ups" sequence.  EldestCub declined to comment.

[Wascally Weasel]

Just got back from The World's End.

It's about a 40 something guy who drinks too much, dresses like he did when he was a teenager and is a dick to his friends.

I'm seriously thinking of suing*.

As Kathy said - this is a bit more mature and reflective and while it employs some of the Spaced style editing that made them all famous, it's probably the furthest away in style.

I didn't hate it but of the three Cornetto films, Hot Fuzz remains my stand out favourite.  Probably because I love the genre they send up so well in it.





*By running up behind someone and shouting "SUE!"

[interzen]

24hr Party People

Been meaning to watch it for ages, but I've always put it off because I think that Steve Coogan is such a complete twat irrespective of whether he's acting or not. Anyway, that aside it's actually a pretty good film - more of an 'inspired by the events of' type of thing rather than a true-and-accurate account of how the whole Madchester thing came (and went)  but despite the liberties taken in places I really enjoyed it.

Awesome soundtrack too, if you're into that kind of thing, and lots of cameos (including one by Tony Wilson¹).

¹ - before he died, obviously.

[spindrift]

Only God Forgives.

Bloody hell, this film lives on in your mind. I didn't really like Bronson, it was a bit horrible and just nasty, Drive was brilliant although a bit over-reliant on CLOSE UPS OF RYAN GOSLING NOT DOING ANYTHING and this was the same, he barely says twenty words the whole film. He's not really the main character, it's Chang who I think may be God. Kristin Scott Thomas turns up and walks out with the film under her arm. Think a female Don off Sexy Beast. Who's had sex with her son.

[Kim]

24hr Party People

I saw that in the campus arthouse cinema when I was at university.  I don't think I was particularly well at the time, and was overwhelmed by it being Too Loud (visually as much as audio), so I slept through most of it.

(I had a similar experience with the first Lord of the Rings film, which was ruined by the sound levels being turned up to 12 in whatever crappy cinema it was.  There's only so much distortion my brain can take before the crowbar kicks in.)