What was the last film you watched?

[T42]

Maybe they're responsible for the crappy films he makes. Last time I saw him in anything other than an idiotic action film was in Magnolia.

[Wascally Weasel]

Mission Impossible IV (Ghost Protocol).

It's a 6/10 competent entertaining action movie, with a lot of humour added by Mr Pegg*. So 8/10, and N loved it. A reminder that straight action movies (i.e. without humour or romance elements) are very rarely worth watching. This one had a nice balance, never got boring, or too serious, or too gory - and unlike some recent Bond movies, didn't suffer too-many-endings-itis.

The only other MI i've seen was II (seems about a billion years ago), which I don't recall being very interesting at all. I believe Simon Pegg is in IV, V and VI, so I'll probably watch those. Did the non-Pegg episodes have any humour to them? I'm not optimistic ...


*I proper splorted at his best moment in this (pretty absurd) scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkV8WE7DFA

MiII was directed by John Woo.  They decided that Mi1 hadn't been ridiculous enough despite a helicopter flying down a tunnel and it got very silly.  I have no memory of III but probably did see it.

[ian]

MIs blend into each other, there's no point trying to distinguish them, but they're genial affairs not afraid to take the proverbials out of themselves. I like Tom, he's nuts of course, and so is Scientology (though I'm hard pressed to say it's any nuttier than most religions).

The Mummy was absolute pants though. Admitted not as much as Mute. I'm scared to watch Altered Carbon now, I don't think I can handle another dystopian, neon-lit future where it always rains.

[T42]

IIRC Mi II was the one in which they were passing secret plans round on CF cards and reading them on Kodak digital cameras. Wow, nobody could penetrate that system.

[sg37409]

Three Billboards  Nothing much to add to what Citoyen said. Very good film.

Not much to add from here either - very much enjoyed it. I had less of an issue with the ABBA inclusion.

Been really looking forward to this as I'm a big fan of the writer/director's previous films (and for the ones his brother has made - at least one of which he worked on).

Thumbs up from me too. A thoroughly enjoyable film. Funny thing though - as we were discussing it, my wife mentioned a pet tortoise, and I missed that completely!

Another 

[T42]

Had a gander at Suits on NF. HTF does such crap get a score of 8.6 on Imdb?  I took great pleasure just now in giving it 4/10, then after an attack of truthfulness went back and corrected it to 3.

Still, after bailing out of that we found that NF had just added Jean de Florette. It took a few minutes to re-attune to the accent, but thereafter it was delightful. Maybe the 10th time we've seen it but it's more like opera than krimi.

[telstarbox]

Fargo, which seemed appropriate for the current weather. Probably the last person in the world to see it but there you go.

Always enjoy Steve Buscemi since The Sopranos and Frances McDormand was great too.

[Torslanda]

The Death of Stalin

Twice. Standout for me is Jason Isaacs as Zhukov and the Beria character is an utterly revolting specimen. Hard to believe it's been banned in Russia - NOT!

If you haven't seen it, you need to.

[StuAff]

The Death of Stalin

Twice. Standout for me is Jason Isaacs as Zhukov and the Beria character is an utterly revolting specimen. Hard to believe it's been banned in Russia - NOT!

If you haven't seen it, you need to.

I want to see it, for sure. Beria was an even more disgusting specimen in real life.

[Steph]

Man Up
Simon Pegg and Not Nick Frost.

Confession: I am a soppy girl. I write and try and sell love stories. Even though said stories are often painful, the usual ending is a happy one. This film is a romcom that ticks those boxes.

[LEE]

Icarus

The Oscar-winning documentary about state-sponsored Russian doping.

It's hard to believe it's factual, it's like watching a Bourne film and/or All the Presidents Men.

Fundamentally you have to assume that every single Russian athlete, in every single sport, at a world level, was doping with the assistance of the KGB.  It was/is on an industrial scale.

Gripping stuff but makes you question the point of organisations such as WADA when the IOC and the UCI are ignoring the findings for their own ends.

[pcolbeck]

Man Up
Simon Pegg and Not Nick Frost.

Confession: I am a soppy girl. I write and try and sell love stories. Even though said stories are often painful, the usual ending is a happy one. This film is a romcom that ticks those boxes.

Even I licked that and I have a low tolerance threshold for romcoms that don't star Doris Day or Audrey Hepburn.

[LEE]

Man Up
Simon Pegg and Not Nick Frost.

Confession: I am a soppy girl. I write and try and sell love stories. Even though said stories are often painful, the usual ending is a happy one. This film is a romcom that ticks those boxes.

Even I licked that and I have a low tolerance threshold for romcoms that don't star Doris Day or Audrey Hepburn.

You want to be careful what you lick.

[pcolbeck]

Man Up
Simon Pegg and Not Nick Frost.

Confession: I am a soppy girl. I write and try and sell love stories. Even though said stories are often painful, the usual ending is a happy one. This film is a romcom that ticks those boxes.

Even I licked that and I have a low tolerance threshold for romcoms that don't star Doris Day or Audrey Hepburn.

You want to be careful what you lick.

Well I wouldn't pass up on having had a chance to lick Audrey Hepburn in her prime.

IGMC

[andyoxon]

Icarus.  (Netflix)

Gripping, and seems to be a shocking eye opener to the scale & audacity of it all.

[T42]

I watched that a week or two back. Powerful, and very believable.

[Wascally Weasel]

Casablanca, yet again - now in the 4k restored version.

[T42]

The hairs in Humph's nose are really startling!

[Samuel D]

I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri last weekend. Probably my favourite film since Winter Sleep. For a start, it’s cinema at its most delicious and aesthetically satisfying. I thought I was in for a treat from the left-justified opening credits and cleverly composed shots of the billboards, and it lives up to those early expectations.

There’s much good acting and directing (Red’s physical movement fascinated me throughout, for example), the script is brilliant, and there’s just enough rough edges to make it all the more enchanting.

But it’s hard to explain why this film is so good. I guess it’s got something to do with the story being told so well, with the full range of cinematic tools expertly deployed on the spellbound viewer. It’s not a realistic story or realistically portrayed, and yet hardly any of it is jarring. It’s filled with crude tropes that no-one believes in and yet you don’t blame anyone for that. It’s probably evidence that even today there is no sure-fire method for making a great film. If you apply art you might, with luck, get a great film – but good luck distilling the trick into repeatable steps.

Is this being shown in the UK?

[mattc]

Is this being shown in the UK?

We do have cinemas over here you know!

[Kim]

Justice League

I refer to comments passim about taking superhero movies too seriously.  The Flash isn't amusing enough to redeem it.  The Amazons seem to have had an unnecessary armour downgrade.


Kimi no Na wa (Your Name)

Compelling enough timey-wimey romantic dross.

[Jakob]

Icarus.  (Netflix)

Gripping, and seems to be a shocking eye opener to the scale & audacity of it all.

It was a really good story. Started out 'innocently' enough, with one guy wanted to see how easy it would be to dope his way to the top of an amateur race.
Grigory is such a character!. You cannot help liking him.

That any Russians were allowed to participate at all in PyeongChang was an unbelievable act of cowardice by the IOC.

[citoyen]

Wonder Woman

Because it was International Women's Day, obviously. Could have been a lot worse. At least it had a few half-decent gags in it and didn't make me nod off like most superhero movies.

[Jaded]

Is this being shown in the UK?

We do have cinemas over here you know!

Not may of them showing that film, unfortunately.

[Kim]

Sharknado 2

I wanted something non-taxing to keep me awake till bedtime, so I wouldn't wake up at audax o'clock, and this has been in the queue for ages.  It starts off with a promising mash-up of Snakes on a Plane and Airplane! references, and would probably be okay if you turned it off at the opening credits.  Edited highlights from contemporaneous IRC follow:

<kim> sharknado 2: literally jumps the shark
<kim> actually, it's quite impressively terrible, not so much because it's so ridiculous, or even the hammy acting, but that they've filmed it in new york without the budget to close any of the public space
<kim> the city's in the grip of a massive disaster, and nobody cares except the main characters.... so they come across as delusional

<REDACTED> 3 is the one where they're space sharks, right?
<REDACTED> which is the one with the fighter jet sharks?
<kim> this is boris bike sharks atm

<kim> suspiciously good acting by the weatherman, thouh
<kim> he may be a real new york weatherman
<kim> yup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Miranda
<kim> still, if he's a real weatherman, that explains why he's so knowledgable about sharknadoes
<REDACTED> isn't everything sharknado distracting cameos of minor American celebrities? 
<REDACTED> after 1
<kim> i don't know enough minor american celebrities

<kim> now the sharks are on fire

* kim thinks . o O ( fool, chainsaws are for zombies! )
* kim thinks . o O ( oh, it worked )

<kim> lobbing chainsaws into a sharknado improves the situation even less than setting them on fire

<kim> oh, now he's riding it like a sandworm
<kim> this really is epic
<kim> sorry, i appear to have misspelt 'shit'
<REDACTED> kim, watching sharknado films so we don't have to?