What was the last film you watched?

[citoyen]

We watched the Matrix last night - we both spent the whole time saying how good it is.

Amazon Prime DE have the other Matrix films which neither of us have watched so we are going to give them a go!

Oh dear...

Some kind of mistake - there was only ever one Matrix film.

Probably just something with a similar title that's ENTIRELY UNRELATED.

[Auntie Helen]

Well, we did watch the second one, but in the end, when Neo is in the room talking to that guy, who speaks in extremely posh and complex English, Klaus gave up and went to bed, because he couldn’t understand it, even with subtitles in German. So we kind of stopped there.

[Auntie Helen]

Watched judgement at Nuremberg last night on prime. I’ve never seen it before, Klaus had seen it loads of times. Impressive cast, and really well done, and an area of history I knew very little about really. Definitely worth the 3 hours.

[andyoxon]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

[mrcharly-YHT]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

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I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

[rogerzilla]

Die Hard, because it's Christmas.  It's actually a rather nasty film.  The FBI are funny, though.

[andyoxon]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

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I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

Great ending.    Wondered how it differs, if at all, from the book.

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Yes, went through thinking... were G.H. & daughter 'part of events', aliens? natural extinction event? forin force attack? Didn't actually guess the exact cause.

[T42]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

(click to show/hide)

I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

Same here. Excellent. Rather ungenerous IMDB rating: I'd give it an 8.

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My guess most of the way through was a vast coronal mass ejection or even a moderate gamma-ray burster.  I liked Ethan Hawke's line "without my phone and my GPS I'm useless".

ETA:

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Loved the "nod" to Elon Musk. 

[mrcharly-YHT]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

(click to show/hide)

I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

Great ending.    Wondered how it differs, if at all, from the book.

(click to show/hide)

Yes, went through thinking... were G.H. & daughter 'part of events', aliens? natural extinction event? forin force attack? Didn't actually guess the exact cause.

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I checked. The book doesn't have the 'friends' theme. It ends with the daughter getting a stack of supplies from the bunker and heading back to the holiday house.

I thought the film ending far superior.

[T42]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

(click to show/hide)

I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

Great ending.    Wondered how it differs, if at all, from the book.

(click to show/hide)

Yes, went through thinking... were G.H. & daughter 'part of events', aliens? natural extinction event? forin force attack? Didn't actually guess the exact cause.

(click to show/hide)

I checked. The book doesn't have the 'friends' theme. It ends with the daughter getting a stack of supplies from the bunker and heading back to the holiday house.

I thought the film ending far superior.

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Haven't read the book yet, but Rose as an allegory for the USA (and much of the rest of the West) is perfect.  Ditto Amanda getting angry and expecting everyone else to fix the problem.

[andyoxon]

...

ETA:

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Loved the "nod" to Elon Musk. 

    Apparently...

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Elon Musk took exception to his Teslas being used for the massive uncontrolled pile up.  https://x.com/samesmail/status/1733305067309084931?s=20  I wonder how many Tesla were actually written off vs cgi

Some moaning it was too long, but I didn't find it so.

[T42]

...

ETA:

(click to show/hide)

Loved the "nod" to Elon Musk. 

    Apparently...

(click to show/hide)

Elon Musk took exception to his Teslas being used for the massive uncontrolled pile up.  https://x.com/samesmail/status/1733305067309084931?s=20  I wonder how many Tesla were actually written off vs cgi

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About that: if GPS was out, how did they follow the road?

Some moaning it was too long, but I didn't find it so.

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For me it could have gone on a deal longer. Once you've been watching a bunch of interesting people for that long, you want to find out what happens to them.

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Just trying for the record spoiler count for a single film. Carry on.

[Socks]

Leave the world behind. 2023  (Netflix)

Good film, well acted (incl. mahershala ali, ethan hawke, julia roberts), which keeps you guessing.  Check out who the Executive Producers are...

Also watched this.
We *loved* the ending.

(click to show/hide)

I thought that the constant weird unexplained events were very good at conveying just how utterly bewildering such a situation would be.

Great ending.    Wondered how it differs, if at all, from the book.

(click to show/hide)

Yes, went through thinking... were G.H. & daughter 'part of events', aliens? natural extinction event? forin force attack? Didn't actually guess the exact cause.

Watched this last night.  As above - quite subtle for an American film, and seemed realistic (especially the point about how easy it would be to destroy a society that is on the verge of instability anyway).  And without the usual obvious ending.

[T42]

Wait till Trump's elected.

[andyoxon]

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About that: if GPS was out, how did they follow the road?

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Guessing just std lane sensor technology.  I wondered why all the Teslas where white in colour.

[Kim]

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About that: if GPS was out, how did they follow the road?

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Guessing just std lane sensor technology.  I wondered why all the Teslas where white in colour.

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To make it clear in the wide shot that the Teslas were forming a 'plug' to stop people leaving New York by road?

[T42]

(click to show/hide)

About that: if GPS was out, how did they follow the road?

(click to show/hide)

Guessing just std lane sensor technology.  I wondered why all the Teslas where white in colour.

(click to show/hide)

To make it clear in the wide shot that the Teslas were forming a 'plug' to stop people leaving New York by road?

Makes sense, given the rest.

[robgul]

Wonka - went to the 1030 showing "Silver Screen" this morning for over 60s with coffee and cake included in the ticket price. 

Lots of well-known faces from the Paddington and other films - very amusing for both adults and children.

[fd3]

I think I've finally given up on the MCU.

I got there before the end of the first film.  Your tolerance for bad movies is epic.

[ian]

I think I've finally given up on the MCU.

I got there before the end of the first film.  Your tolerance for bad movies is epic.

I'll argue that stuff like Iron Man was genuinely good, it was proper storytelling, well-cast, well-written, well-directed as were many of the early films. They should have called an end to proceedings with Infinity War. Now it's AI-written, poorly directed, with no character development (compare Iron Man, Captain America etc. with Captain Marvel, who basically started the movie as she ended it, minus a pair of gloves).


I don't want to watch them ruin stuff like Blade (and it seems they don't, given they seem to have given up with the unnecessary remake). You don't do this opening better.

[spesh]

I don't want to watch them ruin stuff like Blade (and it seems they don't, given they seem to have given up with the unnecessary remake). You don't do this opening better.

I'd seen the reboot mentioned elsewhere a couple of weeks ago - AIUI, the reboot hasn't been deep-sixed, though given the development hell it's been in, if that did occurr, one might consider it a mercy killing:

As public criticism mounts, [Kevin] Feige is pulling the plug on scripts and projects that aren’t working. Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. With Mahershala Ali signed on for the eponymous role of a vampire, things looked promising for a 2023 release date. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board. 

Amid reports that Ali was ready to exit over script issues, Feige went back to the drawing board and hired Michael Green, the Oscar-nominated writer of “Logan,” to start anew. Speculation around town is that the studio is looking to make the film, now slated for 2025, on a budget of less than $100 million — a deviation from Marvel’s big-spending strategy. 

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/

[Jakob]

[Now it's AI-written

No, it's not. Marvel has been shit for years and they were shit to work for and it's frankly amazing that it's taken this long for it to fall apart.  They had zero clue about what they were doing and didn't give a shit about how many lives the ruined in the process.  Their process was pretty much 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' and only through sheer luck by getting the right people to pull the pieces back together for them, did they manage to good continuous run. Any character development finished with Cap America II and Iron Man II. Nothing changed after that. They just threw more characters at it.
It's also virtually drowned out any other movie development for the last decade or so, so I personally can't wait to see the back of it.

[citoyen]

I'll argue that stuff like Iron Man was genuinely good, it was proper storytelling, well-cast, well-written, well-directed as were many of the early films. They should have called an end to proceedings with Infinity War. Now it's AI-written, poorly directed, with no character development (compare Iron Man, Captain America etc. with Captain Marvel, who basically started the movie as she ended it, minus a pair of gloves).

The first Iron Man was great. I quite liked Captain Marvel too. And Thor Ragnarok. Infinity War is dreadful.

Superhero films work best as standalones. Trying to tie them all together into a coherent universe is essentially where they went wrong.

[De Sisti]

The Innocent:

(March 1993).

This film is on Talking Pictures TV at 10 pm (Thurs 14th Dec 2023). Some of the scenes
were shot at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. I was in the RAF at the time and many serving
staff were invited to act as passengers in an airport check-in scene.

We were there from about 7pm in the evening until 4 am in the morning (lots of waiting around). The catering was great and we were well paid for our time.

I am going to record it, just in case I see myself in a scene handing in my boarding pass.

Anthony Hopkins and Isabella Rossellini are the headliners in the film. It's the first time
I've seen it shown anywhere.

[redshift]

I'll argue that stuff like Iron Man was genuinely good, it was proper storytelling, well-cast, well-written, well-directed as were many of the early films. They should have called an end to proceedings with Infinity War. Now it's AI-written, poorly directed, with no character development (compare Iron Man, Captain America etc. with Captain Marvel, who basically started the movie as she ended it, minus a pair of gloves).

The first Iron Man was great. I quite liked Captain Marvel too. And Thor Ragnarok. Infinity War is dreadful.

Superhero films work best as standalones. Trying to tie them all together into a coherent universe is essentially where they went wrong.

I think that's true. Pretty much the only interesting stories of superheroes are the origin stories. Hero's journey, and all that. What the hero did next isn't so compelling, because you already know they're a hero.  See also: Endless police procedural dramas based around the 'maverick' investigator, whodunnits generally, Star Wars* etc.

I stuck with Marvel as far as the end of the infinity war stuff.  The Tony Stark storyline, if you like, from origin to death.  It kind of made sense.  As I think I may have said before, when I went to see Iron Man, I was not a Marvel fan, nor immersed in the world of comics - 2000AD† being the exception, but that was in the 1980's when that dystopia was the future possibility rather than the lived present. As an antidote to the more-or-less contemporary DC stuff (Dark Knight, Superman Returns) it was pretty good, I thought, and obviously came from a different mindset.  The later films, not so much, and the last one I saw (Dr Strange in the Cash Generator, I think it was called) was just pants.


*The original Star Wars (1977) film was a hero's journey origin story which borrowed from Dune, thereby missing both the better plot, and the point. I still like that one, and the recent Dune.

†Speaking of 2000AD, I still think the Karl Urban Dredd film was far better than most of the Marvel stuff, even if it was a thinly disguised version of The Raid.