What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[coprolite]

Hunger Games+ 3x sequels

Battle Royale meets The Running Man-for kids. 

Consistently entertaining, on the edge of too violent for the 11yo i was watching with. Good entry level dystopian sci fi without any subtelty. 

They never quite made sense of why they had the games, apart from baddies (Donald Sutherland- top baddie). 

Jennifer Lawrence is excellent and there's a good supporting cast, apart from the eventual love interest who's an arsehole who acts like a reject from a disney kids sitcom. 

6/10 x 4

 

[accies1874]

16 hours ago, coprolite said:

Hunger Games+ 3x sequels

Battle Royale meets The Running Man-for kids. 

Consistently entertaining, on the edge of too violent for the 11yo i was watching with. Good entry level dystopian sci fi without any subtelty. 

They never quite made sense of why they had the games, apart from baddies (Donald Sutherland- top baddie). 

Jennifer Lawrence is excellent and there's a good supporting cast, apart from the eventual love interest who's an arsehole who acts like a reject from a disney kids sitcom. 

6/10 x 4

 

Last week I watched Battle Royale for the first time which made me the tiniest bit interested in revisiting these. I remember nothing about the first, I watched the second on a plane and quite liked it, fell asleep during the third one in the cinema and then watched about half of the fourth on a plane again until my screen broke. So not got the fondest memories of the series.

[accies1874]

35. Klokkenluider - Cinema

This is likely to remind you of films like In Bruges, Reservoir Dogs and other Tarantino flicks with its dark comedy and moral ambiguity within the confines of a location that is set apart from where you might expect a story like this to be set. It's about a whistleblower who's got a mysterious secret that can bring down the government, but the whole thing is set in the Belgian house (and a bit of the village) where he and his wife are holed up while they wait for the journalist who they plan to leak the story to, all under the watchful eyes of a couple of somewhat gormless private security marks (hence In Bruges). 

It also reminded me of Reality from earlier this year due to that unravelling whistleblower in a confined location and all of the repercussions of trying to bring down the government, provoking mysteries and questions that are likely to carry over past the end of the film. The power of information is both ridiculed and lauded as a tool that could and should tear down governments while also being something that we've become too desensitised to for us to act upon. What's the point of upsetting the apple cart and potentially destroying your own life when it won't have the desired effect? That's spelled out at one point, but the motives behind that are a bit more hopeful and interesting imo. I'm really interested to watch it again as I get the feeling that retrospect will change it a lot - maybe even change it entirely. If it does then that'll be fascinating, but I can't really comment until I have given it a rewatch. 

There's also what seems to be a stealth protagonist which is always fun. There are really just five characters all-in, but they all have secrets which are never resolved yet remain engaging enough to hold your attention. Their interactions can be very funny, too, but it's always on the edge of descending into discomfort, especially when one of the private security duo, Kevin, chastises his colleague Glynn. They all also seem like people who are in over their heads which can contribute the mystery and all-round paranoid atmosphere.

Sometimes they can all talk a bit too unnaturally with forced F-bombs and "mate"s, especially from an actress who shows up towards the end, but even then, that might be deliberate. What I don't think was deliberate was a few weird shot and editing moments and there's definitely one instance of really bad audio editing - so bad that even I noticed it. This was made by a first-time director, Neil Maskell, who won't be a new name for anyone familiar with Kill List which I rewatched last night and still think is absolutely wonderful. 

Aside from that, I found it a really good way to pass 80 minutes without being at all disposable. It's really easy to recommend - which is exactly what I'm doing now!

[accies1874]

36. The Blackening (kinda) - Cinema

Well, this is it: the worst cinema experience of my entire life. Hell, maybe the worst night of my life, full stop. 

I've got a few days off and there a bunch of films in the cinema that I want to see atm so I had a nice schedule of what to see this weekend. The first trip of which was tonight, so I finished work, got in my car, fired up a lower league special of @TerracePodcast and headed to Glasgow to see... Scrapper! Things got off to a bad start as I left the Concert Square car park and realised that my ticket was still in the car and I needed it to get back in, but I just decided to f**k it and continue to the cinema. That went smoothly, and before long I was settled in my seat with my bottle of water and brownie, waiting for the GFT's last showing of Scrapper, a film that I've been wanting to watch since I first saw the trailer. It was scheduled to start at 6.30pm, but the ticket attendant informed us at around 6.35pm that there was a slight delay due to an issue with the projector. 10 minutes later, the manager came back in with the bad news: showing cancelled! This is the second time in a few weeks that they've cancelled the last showing of a film very late on (first was Paris Memories), but I dusted myself down and rushed to collect my refund at the box office. While waiting in the queue, I checked to see if anything else was showing nearby and found that The Blackening was playing just along the road at the Renfrew Street Cineworld at 6.40pm - ongoing but enough time to make it before the trailers end. "Perfect," I thought, "that was on the list, anyway, so at least my trip wasn't in vain." So I bought a ticket for that, got a refund for Scrapper and headed to the Cineworld. Little did I know that there was yet more pain to come. 

Just as I made it to the front door of the tallest cinema in the world, I realised that I'd left my trusty water bottle in the GFT, however I knew that I had no time to turn back to collect it as the trailers preceding The Blackening were no doubt coming to a close. I abandoned the bottle and, perhaps for the first time in my life, took the elevator up the many floors of the aforementioned gigantic cinema and made do with getting a cup of tap water at the snack desk. Perhaps the last thing I expected to see when I got to that desk was Craig Fowler, founder of the podcast currently playing in my ear, occupying the sole staff member by buying a ticket for the film I was trying to rush into. I considered going without water but came to my senses quickly. I eventually got my drink - and credit to the worker who delivered it promptly - and, for the second time within the hour, sat down to watch a film, thankfully just before it began. 

I could tell that something was up with this screening straight away. It seemed like they hadn't turned all of the speakers on or something. I was a couple of rows from the back - and a couple behind Craig Fowler - but all of the audio appeared to be coming from speakers at the front. This meant that it was really hard to make out certain lines of dialogue, the needle drops and jumpscares didn't pack a punch and, importantly, I just wasn't immersed in The Blackening whatsoever, despite finding its characters endearing and some of the post-modernism quite funny. "How could this night get any worse," was my thinking. Enter the Awful Elderly Couple...

30 minutes into The Blackening, an hour after the showing was scheduled to begin, this old couple waltzed in. I wondered if they'd perhaps got the wrong film or something had gone wrong, but hey, I too was almost late for this (yeah, not 30 minutes late, but still) so I let it slide. I knew they'd be trouble when they did the typically stupid thing that latecomers do of shining their torch throughout the screening room just in case being late wasn't distracting enough, however, again, I just wanted to enjoy the film so tried to ignore them. They sat down, a couple of rows in front of me and across from Craig Fowler. And they continued to use their phone, and the woman continued to use it with her torch on. I don't know if she thought it was off or not, but see if you're going to be a complete and utter c**t and use your phone in the cinema, don't keep your fucking torch on. While she eventually turned the light off, but not before she used it to light up their oversized ice cream cone until she and her filmgoing buddy finished it, the texting persisted. Less frequently, granted, but annoying enough to be distracting. As the distractions eased up, although the sound quality never improved, and we made it to the final act, I realised something was missing from my pocket - my goddamn bank card. I knew I'd used it at the GFT, but, with some of the characters kicking about Glasgow, combined with the briskness of my walk from cinema to cinema, I was facing the very real crisis that it might have been nicked. Then the elderly woman started texting again. Then her partner for the evening started making a noise that sounded like the persistent clicking of a pen until the very end of the film. This was the climax of both my story and the story of The Blackening and they were both equally as horrifying. The loss of the card, the flashing screen in a darkened cinema, and this goddamn clicking. I couldn't concentrate and have no idea what the big reveal was at the end of The Blackening. I watched the twist but have no idea why or how it happened. I get the feeling that Craig Fowler felt the same way as he got up and moved a few rows in front to presumably escape the distractions. It's enough to put you off going to the cinema. 

Thankfully there's a happy ending as I found my card in between the seat and retrieved my water bottle from the GFT. I did have to go round the long way to get back into the car park and had to park in an electric bay while frantically paying my £4 fee, so I hope that my refund from the GFT isn't negated by a fine from Glasgow City Council, however I was just desperate to see the back of this sorry ordeal. 

I might return to The Blackening at some point, but I certainly won't be setting foot in Glasgow's Cineworld ever again. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more shenanigans soon as I brave Scotland's worst cinemas. 

Cheers

accies1874

[MSU]

What a nightmare, ser. It's a shame on all counts as Scrapper looks great, The Blackening is decent and worth an undistracted watch, and I used to love to spend the day in that Cineworld back in 2011/12. Plus cuntish old people really make me sad.

[MSU]

180 The Equalizer -- Watched ahead of going to see the new one. Denzel Washington's charm and charisma buy an awful lot of good faith as he stars as Robert McCall, a man with a shady past who is drawn into a world of Russian organized crime when a young prostitute, Alina, played by Chloe Grace Moretz is beaten half to death. It's a long, long movie for what it is, but I kinda liked how it took its time to build up the characters. What it lacks is genuine stakes because none of the good guys ever really look like being in danger. This is a movie where good has to triumph over evil and so it does and by the end of it, when McCall meets up with Alina again, he must be doing some mental arithmetic to tally up how many people he's killed since meeting her. Good fun, entertaining set-pieces, and Denzel is fabulous, but here's an idea...maybe it would've made a better TV show in the 1980s? 6/10

181 The Equalizer 3 -- Denzel Washington kill people in interesting ways, this time in Italiano. We start with Robert McCall at the end of a Sicilian assignment where he suffers a sucker punch from a kid during his walk into the sunset. After that, he's found and taken in by a doctor to recuperate where he falls in love with the village and its people. And little wonder. The Amalfi Coast is stunning and provides a calm and soothing contrast to the bonkers mayhem that goes on during the movie when some local mafioso kids push Robert's friends a little too far and ignore his advice to leave town. Of course, these small fish have bigger fish behind them and so things escalate quite quickly from there. The story is pretty thin, as was the case in the original, but it's impossible not to cheer on Robert McCall, and applaud when he sticks a corkscrew through the chin of a bad guy. Dakota Fanning's CIA operative character is so under-developed it's amazing that they could be bothered to give her a name, but it's still good fun and at twenty-odd minutes shorter than the first one, it feels a bit tighter too. If this is how the series ends, it's not a terrible way to go. 5/10

182 The Equalizer 2 -- I've watched these in an odd order but honestly, they're all pretty much standalone so I don't think I lost anything except for a small plot point that carries forward into Equalizer 3 that I managed to assume for myself anyway. All three movies are very much slight variations of the same thing and would be nothing without Denzel Washington and his murderous ways. If you liked the first, as I did, you're going to like them all, but I felt that this one was maybe just a nudge better than the other two. Robert McCall is a more interesting character here, his contacts with his past are more impactful, and the set pieces are just a little bit more exciting. It also has the best denouement of the series. 7/10

183 Polite Society -- It's a kneejerk reaction from me but whenever I see the Working Title logo come up, it makes me think of Edgar Wright and the Cornetto Trilogy, and for spells in Polite Society, the movie was kind enough to give me a similar vibe, although perhaps more influenced by Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Priya Kansara is wonderful here as Ria, a teenager with dreams of becoming a stuntwoman -- Eunace, the Scouse Gladiator no less -- who is determined to save her sister from being married off to the wrong man but is shocked to discover exactly how wrong he is. There's an awful lot to like in this action comedy and it's perhaps a testament to the goodwill it garners when it feels like it could have better action and it feel like it could be funnier, and yet I still came away from it thinking it was very good. A lot of this goodwill is generated by Kansara herself who is an absolutely captivating presence and carries off all the emotional beats beautifully. The wire work fight scenes don't disappoint either. Director and writer Nida Manzoor puts on a stunning show, especially in the final act, although it feels like she lets the pace of the story get a bit out of control in the first hour or so. The script though is sharp and witty and managed to encourage me to show Bollywood a bit more attention in the future. 8/10

184 Evolution -- I had fonder memories of this early 2000s comedy, and there are still moments that raised a smile, but I think in the past I was more taken with the concept than the actual execution. The story of a meteor crashing to earth and kickstarting alien life in an accelerated manner is interesting and the four leads of David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones, and Seann William Scott all have their moments, but surely too much time is dedicated to the male scientists deciding how much the female scientist is begging for a "good humping." 5/10

185 I Blame Society -- Gillian Wallace Horvat is the writer, director, star, and main character of this uber meta mockumentary in which the fictional (let's hope) Gillian is a failing but ambitious filmmaker who resorts to an old idea of hers to make a documentary about how she would commit the perfect murder. It occupies a weird intersection in a complicated venn diagram of genres but it's an interesting watch for the first half at least. Gillian is a quirky wee soul and the tone pitches well into the sad realization that if you are a creative type of any sort, the chances are most of your friends don't give a shit one way or the other. As the movie progresses, though, and it takes the turns it kinda has to do, it becomes less fun, more stupid, and it really could've done with an increased blood budget. At under 90 minutes, though, it's not a bad distraction and overall it probably has something interesting to say underneath all those layers of meta. 6/10

186 Between Two Worlds -- Juliette Binoche stars as Marianne, an author who looks to find out the effects of the cost of living crisis for her new book and goes undercover with a group of women who work as cleaners. Eventually, through a series of quick turnover positions, she ends up cleaning ferries in the port of Ouistreham in Northern France where she makes friends and eventually struggles with the morality of her deceit. I was expecting something like a French version of I, Daniel Blake but Moi, Daniel Blake it is not. With the exception of a brief scene with a four-leaf clover, it's a strangely emotionless affair, even before we learn that Marianne isn't in the financial crisis that she claims. That's not to say that the work these women undertake isn't grueling and thankless, or that their security isn't worryingly fragile, but the movie spends more time talking about their struggles than showing them, and so many offshoots of the main story are left feeling bare and unresolved. In the end, I'm not sure what the movie wants me to think about Marianne's deception or the plight of the poor folks whose lives continue to be spent cleaning cabins on ferries whether she's there or not, so perhaps it's appropriate that I left the movie feeling pretty much the same as I did when I went in. 4/10

[welshbairn]

On 07/09/2023 at 22:23, accies1874 said:

36. The Blackening (kinda) - Cinema

Well, this is it: the worst cinema experience of my entire life. Hell, maybe the worst night of my life, full stop. 

I've got a few days off and there a bunch of films in the cinema that I want to see atm so I had a nice schedule of what to see this weekend. The first trip of which was tonight, so I finished work, got in my car, fired up a lower league special of @TerracePodcast and headed to Glasgow to see... Scrapper! Things got off to a bad start as I left the Concert Square car park and realised that my ticket was still in the car and I needed it to get back in, but I just decided to f**k it and continue to the cinema. That went smoothly, and before long I was settled in my seat with my bottle of water and brownie, waiting for the GFT's last showing of Scrapper, a film that I've been wanting to watch since I first saw the trailer. It was scheduled to start at 6.30pm, but the ticket attendant informed us at around 6.35pm that there was a slight delay due to an issue with the projector. 10 minutes later, the manager came back in with the bad news: showing cancelled! This is the second time in a few weeks that they've cancelled the last showing of a film very late on (first was Paris Memories), but I dusted myself down and rushed to collect my refund at the box office. While waiting in the queue, I checked to see if anything else was showing nearby and found that The Blackening was playing just along the road at the Renfrew Street Cineworld at 6.40pm - ongoing but enough time to make it before the trailers end. "Perfect," I thought, "that was on the list, anyway, so at least my trip wasn't in vain." So I bought a ticket for that, got a refund for Scrapper and headed to the Cineworld. Little did I know that there was yet more pain to come. 

Just as I made it to the front door of the tallest cinema in the world, I realised that I'd left my trusty water bottle in the GFT, however I knew that I had no time to turn back to collect it as the trailers preceding The Blackening were no doubt coming to a close. I abandoned the bottle and, perhaps for the first time in my life, took the elevator up the many floors of the aforementioned gigantic cinema and made do with getting a cup of tap water at the snack desk. Perhaps the last thing I expected to see when I got to that desk was Craig Fowler, founder of the podcast currently playing in my ear, occupying the sole staff member by buying a ticket for the film I was trying to rush into. I considered going without water but came to my senses quickly. I eventually got my drink - and credit to the worker who delivered it promptly - and, for the second time within the hour, sat down to watch a film, thankfully just before it began. 

I could tell that something was up with this screening straight away. It seemed like they hadn't turned all of the speakers on or something. I was a couple of rows from the back - and a couple behind Craig Fowler - but all of the audio appeared to be coming from speakers at the front. This meant that it was really hard to make out certain lines of dialogue, the needle drops and jumpscares didn't pack a punch and, importantly, I just wasn't immersed in The Blackening whatsoever, despite finding its characters endearing and some of the post-modernism quite funny. "How could this night get any worse," was my thinking. Enter the Awful Elderly Couple...

30 minutes into The Blackening, an hour after the showing was scheduled to begin, this old couple waltzed in. I wondered if they'd perhaps got the wrong film or something had gone wrong, but hey, I too was almost late for this (yeah, not 30 minutes late, but still) so I let it slide. I knew they'd be trouble when they did the typically stupid thing that latecomers do of shining their torch throughout the screening room just in case being late wasn't distracting enough, however, again, I just wanted to enjoy the film so tried to ignore them. They sat down, a couple of rows in front of me and across from Craig Fowler. And they continued to use their phone, and the woman continued to use it with her torch on. I don't know if she thought it was off or not, but see if you're going to be a complete and utter c**t and use your phone in the cinema, don't keep your fucking torch on. While she eventually turned the light off, but not before she used it to light up their oversized ice cream cone until she and her filmgoing buddy finished it, the texting persisted. Less frequently, granted, but annoying enough to be distracting. As the distractions eased up, although the sound quality never improved, and we made it to the final act, I realised something was missing from my pocket - my goddamn bank card. I knew I'd used it at the GFT, but, with some of the characters kicking about Glasgow, combined with the briskness of my walk from cinema to cinema, I was facing the very real crisis that it might have been nicked. Then the elderly woman started texting again. Then her partner for the evening started making a noise that sounded like the persistent clicking of a pen until the very end of the film. This was the climax of both my story and the story of The Blackening and they were both equally as horrifying. The loss of the card, the flashing screen in a darkened cinema, and this goddamn clicking. I couldn't concentrate and have no idea what the big reveal was at the end of The Blackening. I watched the twist but have no idea why or how it happened. I get the feeling that Craig Fowler felt the same way as he got up and moved a few rows in front to presumably escape the distractions. It's enough to put you off going to the cinema. 

Thankfully there's a happy ending as I found my card in between the seat and retrieved my water bottle from the GFT. I did have to go round the long way to get back into the car park and had to park in an electric bay while frantically paying my £4 fee, so I hope that my refund from the GFT isn't negated by a fine from Glasgow City Council, however I was just desperate to see the back of this sorry ordeal. 

I might return to The Blackening at some point, but I certainly won't be setting foot in Glasgow's Cineworld ever again. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more shenanigans soon as I brave Scotland's worst cinemas. 

Cheers

accies1874

So, what's Craig Fowler Fowler like in real life then? A bit shorter than you expected?

[Miguel Sanchez]

This is Spinal Tap (1984) After watching this I did some research to see how accurate it was. What a time it must have been to be making music. Or doing whatever the boys are doing here. God knows what sort of film you could make now with the world's global pop stars and their obsessive fans.

The Terminator (1984) This film was my first introduction to many things. On screen nudity. Love. Time travelling killer cyborgs. 80s dance music. This genuinely gets better over time and it's a travesty that so many terrible films with the Terminator name exist.

In The Heat of the Night (1967) A dead body turns up in a small town in Mississippi in the middle of the night. Fortunately a combination between Sherlock Holmes and Mystic Meg is sitting in the train station. The only problem is it's 1966 and it's a small town in Mississippi and he happens to be black. As compelling and insightful as the racial tensions are, the actual crime and the solving of it feels a bit convenient, as if it has to happen purely because it has to. Fortunately several great performances keep your attention. 

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Why is something so weird so funny? Why is something so uniquely personal and localised so funny? I don't know, but it is. Actually I do, it's surreal, it's weird, and it's still somehow relatable even if you're not a suspiciously adult-looking man going through an awkward high school phase. 

Tyrannosaur (2011) An extremely angry, drunk Scottish man befriends Sophie from Peep Show when he ends up at her charity shop after killing his dog and getting jumped. He doesn't take kindly to her praying for him, but it turns out they both have a dark home life and there's a lot to unravel. It's bleak, it's brutal, but there are two very good performances and you don't really leave this feeling as down as you might think. The only complaint I have is the soundtrack, which is often too loud and feels a bit dated. Very mid-00s indie. It's a bit much.

Children of Men (2006) This film where the UK government rounds up refugees into camps in exaggerated, dystopian fashion while the world of civilisation crumbles around them is set in 2027. Hmm. All the men have gone infertile and there aren't any people being born and the world goes to shit. But it turns out a group of outsiders have a pregnant girl, and they get in touch with a civil servant to try and get her out of the country. I watched this for the first time in ages a few months ago, and was underwhelmed. I liked it more this round. I think I was paying more attention. I think my biggest complaint is it's almost too cinematic. It's a dystopian mess with terrorist bombings and armoured public transport, but a lot of the shots in the city look a bit too detailed and a bit too staged. I don't think I know enough about films to properly assess it. But I don't think the style fits the subject matter.

[mathematics]

14 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Why is something so weird so funny? Why is something so uniquely personal and localised so funny? I don't know, but it is. Actually I do, it's surreal, it's weird, and it's still somehow relatable even if you're not a suspiciously adult-looking man going through an awkward high school phase. 

[accies1874]

37. Cobweb - Cinema

After the shambles of The Blackening, it was nice to be in a screening with just one other person who sat pretty much at the other end of the room, and the sound quality was much better this time around too. 

It seems that Cobweb's distributors have had a couple of f**k-ups. Firstly, it was released in the US alongside Barbie and Oppenheimer so absolutely tanked over there, and now, in Britain, it's released around a month earlier than it should have. Halloween plays a big part in the film: there are more pumpkins than you've ever seen in your entire life, the climax is centred around kids trick-or-treating and it's set in a town called "Holdenfield" ffs. If I watched this around Halloween then I, and I'd imagine others, would've enjoyed it a bit more, but I ended up seeing it on one of the hottest days of the year and it's not even gonna get close to running until Halloween - I'd be shocked if it was still in cinemas in October. I could maybe see it doing OK on digital around that time, but the title and premise doesn't do much to draw you in (kid hears a tapping in his walls which is a result of his parents' dark secret). What did draw me in, for a while anyway, was the aforementioned atmosphere and a sort of artificially stylised story: the characters don't feel real, they don't talk like normal people and they live in a house that can only belong in a horror film. Imo that can work in horror more than perhaps any other genre as the bare minimum requirement is to creep the audience out for an hour and thrill them for the final 30 minutes. This just about managed to do achieve the former, but the final 30 minutes... oh my. 

Like I said, I'm pretty much always happy to overlook issues in a horror if the film works in other ways for me. What I'm not willing to overlook is when I can't see what's fucking going on in a visual medium. Fair enough, you want to make your horror dark and atmospheric, that makes sense, but at least use the tools at your disposal to direct our eyes to what you want us to see rather than just a smear of blueish blacks - that would be atmospheric lightning, not just 'dark.' I literally had to guess what was happening based off of the overt music cues which told you something bad was going down. This could've been an issue with the projection, but I also thought that the editing was too quick to cut when we needed key visual information to understand what the threat was to the protagonist, something I thought was an issue as soon as they introduced the supernatural element. 

It's a shame as I think I would've looked back on it with some fondness if it landed its climax, but it ended up leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. 

[accies1874]

On 10/09/2023 at 00:16, welshbairn said:

So, what's Craig Fowler Fowler like in real life then? A bit shorter than you expected?

Takes too long in a queue imo

[Wee-Bey]

Blade, Blade 2, Blade 3

Watched these again. Can't be arsed writing them up separately, there's little difference between the 3. Some debatable SFX, lots of vampires, blood and martial arts. The opening scene in the club in the 1st is the highlight alongside some 'I forgot he was in this' appearances from various actors. As comic book films go, they're actually alright compared to some recent efforts.

Jurassic Park 

This was on at the cinema, so took the bairns to see it. Spielberg, Dickie Attenborough, Goldblum, the T rex.

They don't make them like this anymore.

 

[DA Baracus]

10 hours ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

Blade, Blade 2, Blade 3

Watched these again. Can't be arsed writing them up separately, there's little difference between the 3

Hey now, that's incorrect!

Blade is outstanding. Blade 2 is OK. Blade 3 is pish.

[Wee-Bey]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Hey now, that's incorrect!

Blade is outstanding. Blade 2 is OK. Blade 3 is pish.

Yeah, the 1st one is probably the best. Was disappointed with 2 as del Torro was directing.

[BFTD]

Never seen the Blade films, but I did enjoy the compilation of clips from the third one demonstrating how Wesley Snipes went into a massive huff and put absolutely zero effort into his performance, often refusing to speak.

I've just noticed that he apparently refused to open his eyes during one scene, so they had to CGI eyes onto his eyelids  

[JustOneCornetto]

(67) M3GAN (2022) – Sky Cimema

Enjoyed this, just the right amount of humour and horror, which doesn’t go over the top. Obvious comparison is Child’s Play but while Chucky was inherently evil M3gan uses sarcasm as a weapon and any bad things she does are purely as a way of protecting her host. Visually it looks good and the film never drags so overall a well-deserved 7/10

(68) T.I.M. (2023) - Netflix

Seemed right to watch this after M3gan as it’s all about an advanced robot who starts to have feelings for his host, Abi. Very much like a Black Mirror episode with near future tech stuff including driverless cars and a house with all the latest tech which TIM soon takes full control of and starts to find ways of splitting up Abi and her husband Paul. It all becomes very violent but it’s not a bad watch overall. 6/10

(69) Ex Machina (2014) – Sky Cimema

Since I was on an AI theme thought I’d give this my first rewatch since seeing it on release 9 years ago. A really good film with the 3 characters all doing a great job. Oscar Isaac is very creepy as the billionaire tech entrepreneur who handpicks Domhnall Gleeson to carry out a Turing test on his advanced AI, Ava, played brilliantly by Alicia Vikander. The interactions are fascinating and Gleeson starts to question his role while you’re never sure how much Ava knows and if indeed she is just playing the 2 of them. The way it ended I’d love to see a sequel but in the meantime Ex Machina is an excellent film to watch over and over. 9/10

(70) Fremont (2023) - GFT

This was a real treat, a low budget independent film about an Afghan immigrant, Donya, who lives in Fremont and works in San Francisco making fortune cookies. Anaita Wali Zada is a pure joy as Donya as you find out about her through a series of interactions with the people in her life. She’s very much like a fish out of water, having fled from the Taliban, after working as a translator for the US Army but there’s a lot of dry humour especially with the psychiatrist she is seeing. Nice gentle pace with an interesting twist and an ending that leaves you wanting more. Bonus was the filmed introduction, especially for Glasgow, by the director Babak Jalali. 8/10

[MONKMAN]

Barbie - utter shite.

Coda - simply brilliant. 

[throbber]

9 hours ago, MONKMAN said:

Barbie - utter shite.

Coda - simply brilliant. 

What is your excuse for watching Barbie in the first place?

[Squalor Vic]

13 hours ago, MONKMAN said:

Barbie - utter shite.

.

Thought this too. Found it practically unwatchable and turned it off.

Was actually disappointed as the reviews and general consensus was that it was pretty much a solid comedy hit and some of the film podcasts I listen too bigged it up, but I just didn't get it. 

Got so bad I watched Plane with Gezza Butler instead, which was far funnier listening to his accent go from Castlemilk to Colorado and never settling anywhere. Him using the words 'Haggis, neeps and tatties' at one point was better than anything in Barbie 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Squalor Vic

[MONKMAN]

4 hours ago, throbber said:

What is your excuse for watching Barbie in the first place?

Because we (wife and myself) thought we’d give it a watch just to see what all the hype was about, after seeing and reading various mixed reviews. It’s shite and I’ll certainly never watch it again. The film did its job though and made a shitload of cash.