Steve_Wilkos Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 On 19/03/2023 at 14:47, MSU said: 077 Champions -- I'm so glad no one tried to make this in the 90s. Woody Harrelson plays a stubborn assistant basketball coach in the Nowhere Leagues who assaults his boss during a game, gets drunk, and then drives into the back of a parked police car. He's given a choice of a custodial sentence or to coach an intellectually disabled team for 90 days. Can this bum of a coach turn this team into winners and maybe, just maybe, learn a bit about himself and the world in the process? Well, if you've seen a sporting comedy in your life, you probably know all the beats that this is going to hit as it slowly saunters its way to the obvious conclusion. Even the love interest B Story of Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson sticks very much to the well-trodden path. The interest in the movie comes from the characters in the team but it's all rather miss rather than hit and aside from a few laugh-out-loud moments, it's mostly a comedy that you smile at while appreciating what it's trying to do. I wish it had been funnier, I wish it had been braver in its narrative choices, and ohmygod I wish it had been shorter, but I'm glad that it exists and that it gives the intellectually disabled a rare opportunity to see themselves on screen, making the jokes rather than being the butt of them. Judging by the viewing I was in, people enjoy being positively represented in the media they watch. Who knew? 6/10 Spoiler The scene where they all ran out of the hall instead of doing laps made me almost piss myself laughing. Also, Everything Everywhere All At Once - 7/10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSU Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 37 minutes ago, Steve_Wilkos said: Hide contents The scene where they all ran out of the hall instead of doing laps made me almost piss myself laughing. Also, Everything Everywhere All At Once - 7/10 Spoiler It was the guy going on about his three-way that had me creased up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSU Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 On 19/03/2023 at 15:20, BTFD said: Also, Drew Barrymore was a has-been child star in 1996, and hadn't had her millennial rom-com renaissance yet. Her being killed off at the beginning was less 'Janet Leigh in Psycho' and more 'thanks for giving my client a bit of work, Wes' Sure I read somewhere that she was supposed to play the lead and convinced Craven to give her the Casey role instead, so I'm not sure anyone was doing her a favour there, other than giving her the smaller part. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 Speed They don't make films like this nowadays. Just imagine it. A bunch of c***s on their phones filming everything and screaming the whole time. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Brightside Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) Anyone else seen the new Creed film? Saw it today and it's perfectly enjoyable, but what stood out to me was the mega Tom Hardy vibes Jonathan Majors' performance was giving off. Edited March 23, 2023 by Mr. Brightside 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsdad Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Shazam, Fury of the Gods. Enjoyable nonsense. I enjoyed this one more than the new Ant Man. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as the baddies was an interesting choice. Especially the fight scenes (Mirren has a long one early on) but... Why not? They clearly were having fun. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewanandmoreagain Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) Funeral in Berlin - very enjoyable spy capers in. A good sting in the tale Spoiler that occurs in the post funeral part of the film Maurice still excellent in his own way as ' arry. Another spy film that mentions the U.K. and allies employing ex - Nazis during the Cold War Edited March 23, 2023 by Ewanandmoreagain 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewanandmoreagain Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) Mr Jones - A Welsh reporter in the Soviet Union in the 30s investigating how the country appears to be more successful than might one think A predecessor was killed in a robbery. He discovers very , very little of Ukraine's grain benefits the Ukrainians as it goes to Moscow resulting in famine This does not make him popular with the Soviets , OR the west with the 30's Depression , Hitler in the process of gaining power , etc George Orwell " appears " throughout writing 1984 Edited March 23, 2023 by Ewanandmoreagain 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theroadlesstravelled Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 I did not care for Pulp Fiction. It insists upon itself. In fact none of Tarantino’s movies were enjoyable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stellaboz Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 All Quiet on the Western Front Been looking forward to watching this for a while since I saw it was on Netflix, as I enjoy a war film from time to time. What an absolutely brilliant film. It follows a young German keen to get to the front in WW1 but quickly finds out its not the romanticised life he's thought. Shows little bits of how life at the front would have been and does it well. Also highlights the madness on armistice day. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustOneCornetto Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 (edited) (21) Woodplum (1980) – Netflix A wee film from Belgium which plays out like a fable about four schoolchildren who find a seemingly abandoned baby in the woods and decide to hide her and care for her as they think the baby would be put in an orphanage. Add in the mysterious appearance of a man in a hot air balloon who seems to be studying the environment around the small town and you wonder if he has put the baby there as some sort of experiment. It’s all very ‘children v adults’ and not a bad watch if you like something out of the ordinary. 6.5/10 (22) Noise (2023) – Netflix Another Belgian film, this time a dramatic thriller which scores very low on IMDB but I thought it wasn’t too bad. Admittedly it does have faults, mainly it’s a bit slow and the ending leaves a lot of questions but it was interesting enough to make it a decent enough watch. A young man, Matt, who seems to earn money through being an influencer?, goes back to live in his childhood house with his partner and baby son. You soon realise he is suffering from some sort of psychosis as he becomes obsessed with a dark secret connected to the local chemical factory which his father ran. Certainly no classic but it filled an hour and a half. 5.5/10 (23) Sabrina (1954) – Sky Cinema Can’t resist an Audrey Hepburn film. This one’s a Billy Wilder romantic comedy but it’s not as funny as some of his other films. William Holden and Humphrey Bogart play two brothers from a rich family and Sabrina, the daughter of the family’s chauffeur, is in love with David, played by Holden, but Linus (Bogart) tries to keep them apart for business reasons. The casting is not good as the age gap between Hepburn and the two men is just too much, especially Bogey (about 30 years). 6/10 (24) Girl In the Basement (2021) – Paramount + A US take on the Josef Fritzl story. The girl playing the imprisoned daughter is very good and some scenes are extremely harrowing with Judd Nelson playing the father who you hate the first minute you see him. Covers the whole 20 year period of his degrading acts on his daughter and if you did not know it was based on a real story you would think it was too incredulous to be true. They give the film a bit of a Hollywood ending but still pretty good. 6.5/10 (25) An American In Paris (1951) – DVD Not a big fan of musicals but this is not bad at all. Gene Kelly is undoubtedly a fantastic dancer but his acting is pretty good as well, never taking himself too seriously. Big lavish dance sequences and the music is lively going well with the Parisian backdrop .Leslie Caron is so-so as the love interest but overall it’s a good watch.7.5/10 Edited March 24, 2023 by JustOneCornetto 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MazzyStar Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 Lapsis (2020) - Carl from ATHF gets a job in the gig economy walking through the woods laying cable. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
velo army Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 John Wick 4. I was expecting a lot of brainless action tropes as I sat down to watch this with a service user (I was working and he wanted to see it). What I got was an homage to stoic masculinity and a much smarter film than I had any right to expect. It isn't perfect, it's a bit too long and the last action scene could have been cut in half. There were a couple of tonal dissonances but they weren't enough to derail my enjoyment. The character Reeves plays is essentially a McGuffin in this. Through him we get to see the other characters and their relationships with each other. The performances are fantastic and the script barely wastes a line of dialogue. Bill Skarsgaard and Ian McShane chew up every bit of scenery they're in too.. They're incredible in this. The direction and music are spot on. Some of the scene composition reminded me of auteur directors at times. This was a surprisingly and deeply enjoyable film. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewanandmoreagain Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 16 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said: I did not care for Pulp Fiction. It insists upon itself. In fact none of Tarantino’s movies were enjoyable. 12 Alan MacGregors is overrated ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 Infinity Pool Bit of a weird one this, not really a thriller nor a horror/gore film but it tries be both, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in which isn't really pursued or explained...... Mia Goth puts in a good shift though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 20 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said: I did not care for Pulp Fiction. It insists upon itself. In fact none of Tarantino’s movies were enjoyable. Considering it'll just be aggregating opinions trawled from across the internet, it would be kind of interesting to know how it came to those (relatively uncontroversial) conclusions. Distinct absence of anime, Star Wars, sparkly archery vampires, Marvel, and German sheisse videos. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 Shazam- Fury of the Gods (aka Shazam 2) (2023) Amusing CGI fest. The family subplot that was great in the first one shifted into mawkishness here. All action, pacey and loads of visual interest, if not exactly good looking. The monsters looked a bit half arsed but were ok. Generally entertaining and among DCs best since the Dark Knight. But, you know... 6/10 Clerks III (2022) Mid life crises with extensive Star Wars chat Was ok. I don't think i've seen II which might not have helped. Seemed to be a lot of self referential stuff that sailed over my head. I know people that were real fans of the original (i thought it was quite good) who i guess this is for. There were some very amusing bits and some of the dialogue and visual gags were smart. The serious bits suffered from the whole not using real actors philosophy. 5/10 Hotel transylvania 3 (2018) Funny animated monsters go on a cruise. Diverting 5/10 A Bug's Life (1998) Funny animated insects oppressed by evil grasshoppers. Enjoyable. Challenged my preconceptions about ladybirds. 6/10 Bolt (2008) Funny animated animals road trip Meh. Dozed off towards the end. 4/10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accies1874 Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 12. Pearl - Cinema I'm not quite sure what to make of this. It's not really a horror, more of a character study into someone who's completely unhinged, but told through a really understated (undercooked?) script. I kept waiting for it to kick into gear, thinking that blood and guts were just around the corner, but then I realised that there was 15 minutes left and that was never coming. So it's not a horror, however it's still similar to X in that it takes a certain style and runs with it - imo much more successfully here. X annoyed me as for all its throwback camera tricks and editing, it still just looked like a Netflix movie which was at odds with the style it was trying to convey, but Pearl rectified that almost immediately with its amazingly colourful scenery which I thought was clever on a potentially unintentional meta level as they took a setting previously portrayed as grimy in X and transformed it into somewhere striking. I think that's supposed to portray the farm as a fairytale/idealist classical Hollywood setting with Pearl (the character) waiting to be saved by some outside being, but it of course turns into an anti-fairytale. An enjoyably cynical anti-fairytale, albeit one without a satisfying pay-off imo. The pay-off is really just an extended monologue (how's that for unconventional) by Mia Goth which goes on for about an hour but I'd be lying if I said it didn't have me gripped, possibly the only point where I was gripped throughout the entire film. The score arguably played a bigger part in creating the storybook setting than the colour scheme did. Again, a classic Hollywood sort of thing that's an extension of Pearl's mind. She does feel like an underdeveloped wee girl in the world of the film, a wee girl with delusions that feed the whole story. Sadly, on first watch those delusions weren't anywhere near interesting enough to me as it felt like a lot of other repressed star-chaser type of film. I think I'm a bit jaded of them after watching so many in a short space of time a few years ago. At least this has some fun technical things that are enjoyable to experience in a cinema. To be honest, with this and X I was kind of left feeling that I liked their concepts but just wanted to see them executed by someone better. 13. Rye Lane - Cinema An absolute delight, I really enjoyed it. What impressed me most was the affection it had for the mundane. So much of the first half or so plays like a musical without the singing (so better!) as the characters weave through these typically bland London locations that are shot through a super wide lens to take in every friendly interaction going on in the background. The whole film feels like an exercise in blending the natural with the stylised in a way that makes the natural seem stylised and the stylised seem natural; I've not explained that well, but the end result is a lovely world that's just... shitty old London. I suppose that's quite like the Paddington movies, only less artificial. That's not a knock on the Paddingtons, but I just think there's something more heartening about Rye Lane's approach. Colourful costumes, a rhythmic score and a playfulness in its settings such as how a kitchen/restaurant's fire punctuates dialogue all add to a great experience. There's an odyssey feel too with the two leads going through the story meeting a bunch of different characters, but it's a bit different as it's more the setting and situations that are interesting than the characters they come across. It's still funny, though, mainly just from the two leads playing off each other's vulnerabilities but Eric's definitely the standout supporting character. It does falter when it wanders into romance conventions but that's certainly not enough to knock it down. I also watched Before Sunrise this morning so any comparisons I'd draw with that would only be retrospective, but yeah this is similar to that only more enjoyable and not as Linklater-y. Got to mention to the two elderly ladies (it's always the fucking elderly!) who either rocked up an hour late for this - an 80-minute film - or an hour early for their next showing. Pair of fannies. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DA Baracus Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 2 hours ago, coprolite said: Clerks III (2022) Mid life crises with extensive Star Wars chat Was ok. I don't think i've seen II which might not have helped. Seemed to be a lot of self referential stuff that sailed over my head. I know people that were real fans of the original (i thought it was quite good) who i guess this is for. There were some very amusing bits and some of the dialogue and visual gags were smart. The serious bits suffered from the whole not using real actors philosophy. 5/10 Aye there's quite a lot of references, and plot, you won't get if you haven't seen Clerks 2 (which was ok but 3 is better I think). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 On 25/03/2023 at 09:06, coprolite said: Shazam- Fury of the Gods (aka Shazam 2) (2023) Amusing CGI fest. The family subplot that was great in the first one shifted into mawkishness here. All action, pacey and loads of visual interest, if not exactly good looking. The monsters looked a bit half arsed but were ok. Generally entertaining and among DCs best since the Dark Knight. But, you know... 6/10 Pretty much agree with this. Didn't enjoy Spoiler the Wonder Woman bit. Did enjoy Spoiler Taste the rainbow, motherf... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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