What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[tongue_tied_danny]

Casualties of War

Vietnam thriller from 1989 starring Michael J Fox as a young soldier who stands up to the rest of his unit when they abduct, rape and murder an innocent female civilian.

I saw this when it first came out but I couldn't remember much about it. The story is pretty shocking, especially as it is based upon real events.  I'm quite sure this kind of thing has happened repeatedly in most, if not all, wars throughout history. 

Very good performances by Fox as the idealistic soldier who refuses to bow to peer pressure and also by Sean Penn as the deranged ring leader of the offence. 

My only minor quibble is that it looked a bit too much of an 80s production. It was too clean and the colours were too bright. I prefer war films that look more grainy and washed out.

7/10

[Twinkle]

14 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Bad Times at the El Royale - Disney Star. Saw the names Jeff bridges and Jon Hamm, and decided to give it a go based on that. Good decision.
The director has obviously watched a bit more QT than is strictly healthy, but this is a pretty good "strangers bring their secrets to remote hotel" offering, with plenty of flash back expedition will timed to keep the interest, and several WTF? moments along the way. Maybe twenty minutes to long, but an enjoyable couple of hours or so.

8/10. Nah, what the hell, 9 - a point for the singing.

Brilliant film. Cynthia Erivo steals the show with the signing. One of my favourite films of the last few years

[accies1874]

Cut it by maybe 30-40 minutes, tidy up the ending and give a nice payoff for the crossing timelines and it's a 10/10.

$100m please.

[Arch Stanton]

On 23/02/2021 at 21:07, WhiteRoseKillie said:

When Zeppelin returned to the states, it was her mother who dropped her off at the airport, effectively delivering her to Page. Unbelievable now, it hardly raised an eyebrow at the time.

As you say, these seem like another era, where Page, John Peel, and what seems like every middling rock band were plundering the schools for "road wives". I think Pete Townshend was the last of rock's wrong'uns to get anything like a pass.

While I'm certainly not defending nonceism, the age of consent in Texas at that time was 15 (which was the age of his 1st wife when they married) so Peel did nothing illegal.

[paul-r-cfc]

The White Tiger.
Cracking Indian film about a poor guy infiltrating a criminal family. Maybe a bit weak and implausible in the last act but a solid 9/10.

Didn't realise there was a film of that. Read the book last year and despite being weird as hell, I loved it. Will need to look that out.

[BFTD]

Somehow I ended up with a Catherine Keener double bill tonight.

8mm - my occasional guilty pleasure. Apparently it's been five years since I last watched it.

Trust - I didn't remember having seen this, but kept getting little twinges throughout that it seemed familiar. Turns out that I already talked about it on here six years ago.

Seems like I liked it back then, and possibly even more this time. Good work all round from all involved.

[Ira Gaines]

Trust got brought up not long ago when someone watched Megan Is Missing. I pretty much agree with that original review. I don't mind Megan Is Missing but it completely negates it's point by just going for shock value and that ends up being what people remember. Not the message.

Trust covers so much ground. Both the dangers and the aftermath are looked into in great depth and David Schwimmer does an excellent job here.

[tongue_tied_danny]

Gardens of Stone

James Caan plays an army sergeant who is wracked with angst while stationed at a stateside  military cemetery during the Vietnam war.

Not much happens but it's fairly interesting and has some good performances.

6/10

[SANTAN]

Watching This Is The End

I only ever watched it once at a mini sesh back in the day, so pretty much my first time properly watching it and I'm laughing a lot, obviously low brow yank humour mostly but it's superb none the less. 

[BFTD]

Argo - Blu-Ray - in the aftermath of the storming of the American embassy during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, CIA Agent Ben Affleck comes up with a plan to smuggle half a dozen of the embassy staff out of the country before they're discovered and executed.

This must have been on my to-watch list for the best part of a decade, and somehow I managed to avoid hearing about the real-life batshit idea that the film revolves around, which I won't mention here as it was a pleasant surprise. The film's a nicely taut thriller that does a surprisingly good job of ratcheting up the tension, and has a quality cast doing a very good job. I'm not sure that it would necessarily have won Best Picture at the Oscars if it weren't for the navel-gazing American history aspect, but it's a very enjoyable film nonetheless.

Iron Man - Blu-Ray - harrowing study of a billionaire war criminal's descent into delusional madness after a gruelling kidnapping.

Apparently we're going through the Marvel films again from the beginning. My son's a big MCU fan, so I know this film like the back of my hand at this point, but it's still an entertaining romp with a few proper laughs. I didn't think it had any surprises left, only to discover that Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine played one of the Afghans at the beginning! Even better, it gave me the opportunity to recommend RATM to the boy, and to once again point out that Black Sabbath are the greatest band of all time.

Although he did say that he thought Led Zeppelin wrote the titular end credits tune, and that it had been written for the film, which I'm thinking might have been an impressive attempt to wind up his old man. They grow up so fast.

[NotThePars]

My Octopus Teacher

Octopuses are sick but why did one of them have to befriend this guy?

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Deeply cringe but pretty funny. Also Harley Quinn shoots multiple police officers (albeit with a beanbag shotgun) and says she voted for Bernie Sanders which makes this the most radical movie of the last 30 years.

[tongue_tied_danny]

Born on the 4th of July

Oliver Stone directed this biopic of Ron Kovic, who volunteered to fight in Vietnam and then cried like a little baby girl when it went all wrong for him.

I found it hard to have any sympathy for him when he'd been so gung ho  before he signed up. 

The rules didn't change when you got shot you fucking p***k.

That said, it was a good performance by Tom Cruise in the lead role.

5/10

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Capone.

Tom Hardy plays Capone in the last days of his life, riddled with syphilis (had spread to his brain) Hardy spends the whole film stumbling around, grunting and shitting himself, as the government try to track down the 10million Capone had allegedly hidden.

6/10.

[Ira Gaines]

You're a kinder man than me with that score 

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Yeah was only because Hardy was in it.

[Detournement]

King of New York - A mental early 90s gangster movie from Abel Ferrara with his trademark levels of drugs and nudity. Chris Walken and Larry Fishburne ham it up brilliantly and David Caruso is exactly as hateable as he was in CSI Miami. 

Curse of The Cat People - A sequel to the far better Cat People but not a bad wee movie. The best and scariest scene in the original features Jane Randolph in a swimsuit. At no point in the sequel does she wear a swimsuit. The plot is only loosely connected to the original and it's basically about a wee girl who gets in trouble with her arsehole Da because she no pals. 

[DA Baracus]

On 27/02/2021 at 03:49, BFTD said:

Argo - Blu-Ray - in the aftermath of the storming of the American embassy during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, CIA Agent Ben Affleck comes up with a plan to smuggle half a dozen of the embassy staff out of the country before they're discovered and executed.

This must have been on my to-watch list for the best part of a decade, and somehow I managed to avoid hearing about the real-life batshit idea that the film revolves around, which I won't mention here as it was a pleasant surprise. The film's a nicely taut thriller that does a surprisingly good job of ratcheting up the tension, and has a quality cast doing a very good job. I'm not sure that it would necessarily have won Best Picture at the Oscars if it weren't for the navel-gazing American history aspect, but it's a very enjoyable film nonetheless.

Iron Man - Blu-Ray - harrowing study of a billionaire war criminal's descent into delusional madness after a gruelling kidnapping.

Apparently we're going through the Marvel films again from the beginning. My son's a big MCU fan, so I know this film like the back of my hand at this point, but it's still an entertaining romp with a few proper laughs. I didn't think it had any surprises left, only to discover that Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine played one of the Afghans at the beginning! Even better, it gave me the opportunity to recommend RATM to the boy, and to once again point out that Black Sabbath are the greatest band of all time.

Although he did say that he thought Led Zeppelin wrote the titular end credits tune, and that it had been written for the film, which I'm thinking might have been an impressive attempt to wind up his old man. They grow up so fast.

Avengers Endgame should have ended when Tony dies on the battlefield after his "And I am Iron Man!" line, only to then wake up back in that cave from the first Iron Man film, revealing that he dreamt it all and that, not only did absolutely none of it happen, but all the other characters were completely made up in his head and don't exist. The terrorists then storm the cell, see what he and his pal have been up to and summarily execute them both.

[coprolite]

The Gentlemen. It's a guy ritchie film and delivers exactly what you'd expect from one. Top performances bail out quite a weak story and script.  I don't think I needed my brain at all, so it was quite enjoyable. 6/10.

[Ira Gaines]

DA Baracus has came up with genuinely the worst movie idea ever there. Naw even a good Jacob's Ladder scenario. 

[JustOneCornetto]

Witness (1985)

Seen this a couple of times previously but it stands the test of time and enjoyed it again. Good story with Harrison Ford playing a cop who goes undercover in an Amish community to protect a young boy who witnessed a murder involving corrupt drugs enforcement officers. The wee boy is good and his mother is Kelly McGillis who despite being Amish gets them out and gives us and Harrison a right good eyeful.

7.5/10