What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[NotThePars]

23 minutes ago, BigDoddyKane said:

I was a bit disappointed with Annihilation, I like vague normally and its a decent movie but I didnt feel it rose above that. It starts of well but from half way mark it just sort of fades. Still worth a watch though and others like Pars may be right.

I felt the same as you on the first watch mate. I don't know if it's stockholm syndrome from watching a lot of recent cinema which batters you over the head with meaning or ends in a 3 hours laser battle but I enjoyed the relative sparseness of it. Looks gorgeous as well. Not perfect though by a long shot.

I'm not surprised on reflection that Garland wrote 28 Days Later as well. 

[BigDoddyKane]

19 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

I felt the same as you on the first watch mate. I don't know if it's stockholm syndrome from watching a lot of recent cinema which batters you over the head with meaning or ends in a 3 hours laser battle but I enjoyed the relative sparseness of it. Looks gorgeous as well. Not perfect though by a long shot.

I'm not surprised on reflection that Garland wrote 28 Days Later as well. 

I will give it another watch in future then

[accies1874]

Yip I'd also recommend watching it again. I can't really put my finger on why, but it just seemed to click the second time around.

[The Naitch]

Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Amazon Prime) - 8/10

Very decent adaptation of the utterly brilliant musical. Max Harwood is superb in the lead role and they managed to retain most of the numbers from the stage show.

Sarah Lancashire and Richard E. Grant putting on an acting masterclass helps bring it all together.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Candyman- 1/10

Remember when movies didn’t need to have an political agenda and were just entertainment?

 

[NotThePars]

13 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Candyman- 1/10

Remember when movies didn’t need to have an political agenda and were just entertainment?

 

Going back to 1940 and watching The Great Dictator which thankfully has nothing to say about the political conditions of the day

[Mr. Brightside]

18 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Candyman- 1/10

Remember when movies didn’t need to have an political agenda and were just entertainment?

 

f**k off.

[BFTD]

I fucking knew Candyman would blow itching powder up the skirt of somebody on here eventually  

Alien/Aliens (cinema) - there's an alien. Hijinx ensue. Later, there are more of them. Likewise.

Was recently embarrassed to discover that I'd neglected to expose the wean to any of the Alien films beside Alien: Covenant (the poor mite), so we rectified that yesterday. First time I'd seen them on the big screen myself, and it was very worthwhile.

Alien feels quite different in the cinema, with nothing to distract and no pause button. It's a real languid affair, taking its time to hit the big plot markers that everyone knows and building up bags of atmosphere. The camera floats lazily around the ship throughout, inviting the viewer to take a look about and imagine living there. The detail in the sets is remarkable and looks totally convincing - the Nostromo feels hot, sweaty, and well liven-in.

There are a few effects that have aged quite badly (and had by twenty-five years ago TBH), but a classic film transcends such things. It's remarkable how many imitators copied the trappings without understanding why the film works so well; it still stands apart from all the other space horror films in tone and execution. Sadly, during the scenes with all the cast, all I could think about was how many of them have died recently...and I don't think I'd ever noticed quite how much the first couple of series of Red Dwarf cribbed from the modelling and set dressing of Alien, but I think they even flat-out copied a couple of rooms  

Didn't gain quite as much from seeing Aliens again, but it's fucking Aliens for God's sake, and I did notice a couple of minor things that had eluded me on the small screen. Also the first time I'd seen the original theatrical cut since it was on the telly back in 1990 - it's always the director's cut everyone watches these days.

This is definitely a better version to watch for the first time, keeping Hadley's Hope and its fate under wraps until the marines arrive on LV-426, rather than showing the base pre-infestation and explicitly letting the audience know that the molecular acid has hit the fan. Hardly a great surprise if you'd already seen the prior film, but it builds more suspense not to see exactly what we're travelling to. It does, however, drop all mention of Ripley's daughter, which sets up the whole theme of the film, although some might feel that it doesn't require such a heavy-handed explanation for Ripley's role as the plot progresses. I just appreciated it as a moment of real horror for a parent, away from fantastical space monsters.

The original cut certainly ticks along at a faster pace, offering plenty of nods to the original in a variety of shots and camera movements, while firmly taking control of its own destiny. It certainly feels like Fox allowed James Cameron to do his own thing to a degree, but they certainly didn't seem to appreciate the results, going by the unholy clusterfuck that the production of Alien 3 turned into.

Sadly, Aliens seems to have been one of those films that whooshed many of its fans. In a similar fashion to how Brian De Palma's Scarface isn't an inspirational rags-to-riches tale about a poor immigrant taking no shit and living his best life, Aliens isn't the story of badass soldiers kicking ass and delivering one-liners, but a surrogate family tale where a bunch of (admittedly cool and entertaining) blowhards are slaughtered due to their own arrogance and incompetence. Christ knows how, but it's remarkable how many people seem to manage to miss that aspect, and bemoan the lack of sequels featuring the USCMC kicking alien butt across the galaxy. This is how we end up with Starship Troopers sequels, folks.

Another mention for Red Dwarf - Captain Hollister makes an appearance in the director's cut as one of the colonists. You'd probably take your chances with the xenomorphs to escape Rimmer.

[BFTD]

Might as well add to that wall of text above - Ridley Scott's re-edit of Alien is worth seeking out if you enjoyed the original film. It features quite a bit of new footage and still clocks in at a shorter running time than the original. I've never bothered to compare the differences, and it's not a superior version by any means, but I do remember it feeling quite different in places and it was an interesting companion piece.

It also features a catfight between Lambert and Ripley, which I think we can all agree to have been the main thing missing from the original.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

Going back to 1940 and watching The Great Dictator which thankfully has nothing to say about the political conditions of the day

That is a satirical movie and a classic.

Candyman is a daft, horror/comedy movie that will be forgotten about in a year. The RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA theme is redundant and self-defeating.

Ultimately it was just a shite movie. 

[BFTD]

Candyman (1992) - pretentious horror/comedy garbage, forcing sermons about RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA down the audiences' throats.

No wonder it was forgotten within a year of release.

[Virtual Insanity]

31 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Candyman (1992) - pretentious horror/comedy garbage, forcing sermons about RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA down the audiences' throats.

No wonder it was forgotten within a year of release.

Read this at the top of the page without reading the preceding context and was tremendously confused. 

[accies1874]

There's a twist in the 1992 Candyman that I was convinced was a dream sequence so spent around 15 minutes waiting on a fake-out that never came. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

[sfha]

On 19/09/2021 at 23:26, BFTD said:

Might as well add to that wall of text above - Ridley Scott's re-edit of Alien is worth seeking out if you enjoyed the original film. It features quite a bit of new footage and still clocks in at a shorter running time than the original. I've never bothered to compare the differences, and it's not a superior version by any means, but I do remember it feeling quite different in places and it was an interesting companion piece.

It also features a catfight between Lambert and Ripley, which I think we can all agree to have been the main thing missing from the original.

Spoiler

Spoiler

The scene where Dallas is metamorphosing into an egg

 

The theatrical version of Alien is of course still outstanding but the director's cut does have some gems... ^^^

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

Jason Bourne - despite having more courage in it's convictions than the original films and just explicitly making the CIA and security state as a whole the baddy, this is by far the least interesting and weakest of the series. The manhunt scenes aren't balanced with enough clever evasion or investigation from Bourne which made the earlier films exciting, with his involvement mainly being sitting on trains or being in action set pieces. The crowbarring in of more modern social media and surveillance stuff isn't handled well at all, and as a result the film struggles to get performances out of Riz Ahmed and TLJ which is a real shame. I've never understood why Vincent Cassel keeps getting these roles, and Vikander is pretty wooden. Pretty poor and fails as a spy film, an action film and any sort of social cultural commentary imo.

 

 

[BFTD]

I'll be seeing the new Bond film next weekend, and it just occurred to me that I've only seen Casino Royale of Daniel Craig's entries...even that was back when it first came out. Between that and the fact that BigFatTabbyBoy has apparently never seen a Bond film (), I figure it's probably time to work through them.

Casino Royale (DVD) - remembered this being good, but it was actually even better than that. A real stonking start for Daniel Craig, with a ripsnorting, snappy tale that reinvented the way the series and character are presented, without doing too much differently in the way of story. Funny to think about the outrage over the new Bond before the film was released, as Craig is excellent as the ice-cold assassin, giving the character a palpable sense that there's just something missing behind the eyes. A terrific thriller, full of tension and remarkably, properly funny.

Quantum of Solace (DVD) - and then we have to get what's generally agreed to be the worst out of the way. Craig is still on good form, and there's some lovely warm, vivid cinematography, but the story is mediocre, with a deeply underwhelming villain, and the revenge aspect was frankly done better in Licence to Kill. The film has a choppy feel to it, and it's quite easy to lose track of what's happening at any given point due to disinterest. The action scenes are also appallingly edited in that post-millennial blockbuster way, with perpetually shaking camera, constant cuts, and a general lack of coherent movement that leaves the audience only barely aware of what's taking place.

It has its moments though, and the performances are again better than you'd likely expect from the Bond franchise, with the returning Judi Dench and Jeffrey Wright standing out in their brief time onscreen. Overall, though, it's about as forgettable as any of the prior films.

Had to twist BFTB's arm to watch these, as he'd no interest in Bond whatsoever, but he's quite keen to see Skyfall now so I think we have a convert.

[NotThePars]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Craig is excellent as the ice-cold assassin, giving the character a palpable sense that there's just something missing behind the eyes.

The best thing those movies did in hindsight was suggest less that Bond is suave, sophisticated or in control and more that he's just an unhinged psychopath who happens to be good looking.

[Arch Stanton]

Old (2021)

An hour and 3/4 of my life that's not coming back.

An interesting premise hamstrung by a lousy script and diabolically bad acting.

[scottsdad]

Doctor Strange (2016) 3/10

Feeble superhero movie. Cumberbatch spends the first half of the film acting like House, even sounding like him in places. Then overnight he's got amazing magical powers. Pisspoor story. Loads of CGI and Mads Mikkelsen cannot save this. 

[sfha]

On 22/09/2021 at 23:43, Arch Stanton said:

Old (2021)

An hour and 3/4 of my life that's not coming back.

An interesting premise hamstrung by a lousy script and diabolically bad acting.

I kept going back to this deciding whether or not to watch it.... don't think I'll bother now!