Rate the last film you watched out of 5

[And]

Artemis fowl - 0/5 Execrable 

 

Ad Astra - 1/5  Boring. Made no sense. 

Can you ever forgive me? - 3. Richard E Grant takes every scene, stuffs it into his coat and runs away with it. 
 

once upon a time in Hollywood. 4/5 

probably Tarantino’s weakest film to be honest, a manly film about manly men doing manly man stuff. The ending is amazing though. And it’s still loads better than most other shit out there. 

[tomvek]

11 hours ago, And said:

Can you ever forgive me? - 3. Richard E Grant takes every scene, stuffs it into his coat and runs away with it. 

 

That's all I needed to hear 

[sandman]

The lady from Shanghai

 

Excellent thriller from Orson Welles. Cracking script and not a weak performance anywhere. Highly recommended for noir fans

 

4.5/5 (I’m deducting half a mark for that bloody accent)

 

House by the River

 

My second Lang film doesn’t quite hit the highs of the first. It’s still very good, but doesn’t feel as fresh or essential. The court case is pure farce on occasion and reminded me of a Phoenix Wright case. Great ending.

 

4/5

 

Xmen Dark Phoenix 

 

Not as good as the first two films I watched in the series, not by a long shot. Turner struggles here and the direction isn’t up to the quality of FC and A. Still, some great action scenes and the leads are excellent still.
 

3.5/5

 

Xmen origins

 

Not a well liked movie this one. I’ve always had a soft spot for it but it definitely does fall apart in the final act. Still the combo of Jackman,  Huston and Schreiber  is like a casting dream come true as far as I’m concerned. 

I think the main reason why people didn’t like It was due to the certification and a lack of violence. Well, they must be reading different Wolverine comics to the ones I’ve read as it’s all PG stuff.

 

3.5/5

 

 

[Sabreman]

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

 

This has got a great rep but ultimately it's shackled by being a TV movie. As usual you can feel things stretching out to fill a primetime spot (with ad breaks), and being a vengeance thriller it could really use a splash of red here and there. Two deaths are so heavily signposted you can only roll your eyes when they happen exactly as expected. Cast is good, including Charles Durning as a postman who seems to live in his uniform, and bug-eyed wall of teeth Lane Smith as two of a quartet of trigger-happy vigilantes quick to action after a tragic misunderstanding. There is a nice little mystery you can juggle in your head as clock counts out, but it's not really worth going out of your way for.

 

3/5

[Joystick Chevron]

Little Joe (2019)

 

I shan't lie, I only watched this because I have a soft spot for Emily Beecham, who actually won Best Actress at Cannes for it. She's very good as Alice, a divorced botanist struggling to find time for work and her son, Joe. She uses genetic engineering and viral techniques to create a new flower - the Little Joe of the title - and shit 'appens, as they say. It's equal parts middle class single parent angst and pod people paranoia ala Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. It's rather slow and feels quite stagy, restricted as it is to just a few repeating sets/locations. It feels very much like a BBC2 Sunday night drama in scope and ambition considering it's about mind-altering plant pollen turning people into pod people (OR IS IT?). Despite that, Emily gives an excellent and realistic/natural feeling performance as the uncertainty and paranoia begins to creep in, and while the camera work is hella static, visually it's surprisingly beautiful at times with some nice framing and use of colour, albeit not particularly cinematic.

 

While it sounds like it would be horror on paper, it's not remotely a horror film. More like vaguely unsettling at best. I wouldn't watch it again but eh, it passed the time.

 

2 and a half Bill & Bens/5

[Gommy]

4 hours ago, sandman said:

The lady from Shanghai

 

Excellent thriller from Orson Welles. Cracking script and not a weak performance anywhere. Highly recommended for noir fans

 

4.5/5 (I’m deducting half a mark for that bloody accent)

 

House by the River

 

My second Lang film doesn’t quite hit the highs of the first. It’s still very good, but doesn’t feel as fresh or essential. The court case is pure farce on occasion and reminded me of a Phoenix Wright case. Great ending.

 

4/5

 

Xmen Dark Phoenix 

 

Not as good as the first two films I watched in the series, not by a long shot. Turner struggles here and the direction isn’t up to the quality of FC and A. Still, some great action scenes and the leads are excellent still.
 

3.5/5

 

Xmen origins

 

Not a well liked movie this one. I’ve always had a soft spot for it but it definitely does fall apart in the final act. Still the combo of Jackman,  Huston and Schreiber  is like a casting dream come true as far as I’m concerned. 

I think the main reason why people didn’t like It was due to the certification and a lack of violence. Well, they must be reading different Wolverine comics to the ones I’ve read as it’s all PG stuff.

 

3.5/5

 

 

Did you miss days of future past?

[Lovelyman]

Dirty Computer Emotion Picture

 

Brilliant album film. Some of the best music videos this decade tied together with a Sci Fi dystopian vibe. 

 

5/5

 

Do the Right Thing

 

Really good. Kind of reminded me of Goodfellas in some scenes and a Coen film in others. Spike Lee nails the feeling of tension between people struggling in unbearable heat. 

 

5/5

 

I'm feeling generous today but both are excellent. 

[Boothjan]

Ready Player One

 

Really enjoyed this.  Great fun spotting the countless gaming easter eggs, parts of it were filmed right by where I used to work in Birmingham and the story was really entertaining.

 

4/5

 

The Colony

 

Hermione Granger and Niki Lauda end up in a fucked up commune following Pinochet's revolution in Chile.  An interesting story which I had no idea was based on real life.

 

3/5

 

Plus One

 

What looks like being a formulaic, dull rom-com actually ends up being quite good fun as two old friends make a pact of being each other's 'plus one' for the countless weddings they end up being invited to.

 

3/5

 

Carla's Song

 

Robert Carlyle is in great form as a Glaswegian bus driver who gets involved with a traumatised Nicaraguan refugee.  Emotive and powerful in places - but it is a Ken Loach film so that's to be expected.

 

4/5

 

Monsters

 

As a huge fan of Rogue One, I thought I'd give Gareth Edwards' first film a go and I enjoyed it - good, indie fun.

 

3.5/5

 

What If

 

Another rom-com starring Daniel Radcliffe and Adam Driver.  Another inoffensive, fun film that ended up being a lot better than I expected.

 

3.5/5

 

Free Willy

 

Amazingly, I'd never seen this before so we watched this for our Sunday family film.  Dripping with nostalgia and plenty of awful 2D bad guys, this was heart warming enough but I did watch it the day after I saw Blackfish which wasn't a wise decision in hindsight.

 

3/5

 

Captain Fantastic

 

Viggo Mortensen is absolutely brilliant as an eccentric father who raises his 6 kids in the woods, totally away from any form of civilisation.  The film shows them trying to re-engage with society and is funny, sad, powerful and heart warming all at the same time.  It raised a lot of really good questions after we finished watching it - no-one in this film is right, but neither are any of them 100% wrong either.  Loads of flawed characters but all of whom - to some degree - are absolutely right in how they think about life.  A wonderful film that is amongst the best I've seen this year.

 

5/5

 

Wasp Network

 

A gritty drama focussing on the troubles in Cuba during the early to mid 1990's.  Having visited Cuba, this was extremely interesting despite the fact that the biggest surprise was just how young Wagner 'Pablo Escobar' Moura looks since he was in Narcos.  This is very good and worth a watch.

 

4/5

 

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

 

Just...... what??!  This has 2 marks because I genuinely can't decide whether this is utter shite or a very clever homage to the cheese fest that is Eurovision.  Dsiclaimer: I HATE Eurovision and the dreadful excuses for music it produces.  Sorry.  Having said that, some of the songs in this are just bloody hilarious.  My better half keeps singing Ja Ja Ding Dong at me to piss me off.  I hate it less now than when I watched it, but I might hate it more tomorrow.  It's a mood thing.  Will Ferrell is a bit OTT though, the best parts of this are the scenes without him.  The only advice I can give here is see it for yourself and decide which of the following scores is the more accurate!

 

1/5 or 4/5 

 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 

This is good, but TBH if Hermione Granger hooked up with Percy Jackson, I'd expect far more fireworks.  Plenty of good performances in this.

 

3.5/5

 

The Boxer

 

Goes without saying that Daniel Day-Lewis is outstanding in this, but Ken Stott, Brian Cox and Emily Watson are also very good in a gripping tale based around a Boxing club in Northern Ireland during the troubles.

 

3.5/5

 

Olympus Has Fallen

 

A really lazy film that annoyed me a bit.  Essentially a Washington DC-based version of Air Force One without the charisma of Harrison Ford or Gary Oldman.  And a lot of guns and explosions.  I know there's a sequel based in London but I'm not fussed about seeing it unless it's just as gory and shows the demise of lots of Tory MPs.

 

2/5

 

[neoELITE]

VFW

I really thought it was stupid, rushed in places, clichéd and verging on pornographic with the gory violence.

It's one of those films that will probably have a cult following.

Not for me.

I didn't get the point of it. What was it trying to say?

2/5

[Gambit]

The Truman Show

 

Not seen this in over a decade, but it recently popped up on Netflix. It was so ahead of it's time, and even now the world is still obssessed with reality television. Watching Jim Carrey's slow descent into madness, an excellent performance with him managing to pull back before going into full on "Ace Ventura" mode. I forgot that it really takes a while before we get a look into Ed Harris' control room, and when it does it's handled brilliantly, with a lot of thought going into how this world works. A great supporting cast too (Scully from B99 is in it!).

 

Still a classic.

 

5/5

[sandman]

Pet Semetary 

 

I really rather liked this. Clarke was brilliant and so was Lithgow. Miles better than the rubbish 80s version, that’s for sure. Looks amazing, a very well shot movie. 
 

4/5

 

Frost/Nixon

 

Utterly spellbinding film. How on earth Langella didn’t win best actor is beyond me. The best performance I’ve seen in the last few months. Miles better than Penn was in Milk who won that year. Sheen is almost as good in a performance that would dominate most other movies. Perfect film making from the (still) vastly underrated Howard.

 

5/5

 

Kill the Messenger

 

A good but not great film. Renner is his usual reliable self but the film is obvious and I felt I could predict a fair bit of it. Still, I certainly enjoyed it and was a first rate cast.

 

3/5

[Plissken]

The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

 

By reputation an influential classic, and one I figured that I would save so that I could sit down and properly watch. And I’ve avoided the remake too.

 

It’s frickin’ brilliant. Robert Shaw is the one by reputation but Walter Matthau is awesome throughout. Add in snappy dialogue, whip smart plotting and the fact that there is nowhere cooler and more atmospheric for a thriller than 1970s New York and it was well worth the wait.

 

5/5 (and bonus points for having an amazing cast, including Julius “Tee Hee” Harris)

[kempstar]

17 hours ago, Gambit said:

The Truman Show

 

Not seen this in over a decade, but it recently popped up on Netflix. It was so ahead of it's time, and even now the world is still obssessed with reality television. Watching Jim Carrey's slow descent into madness, an excellent performance with him managing to pull back before going into full on "Ace Ventura" mode. I forgot that it really takes a while before we get a look into Ed Harris' control room, and when it does it's handled brilliantly, with a lot of thought going into how this world works. A great supporting cast too (Scully from B99 is in it!).

 

Still a classic.

 

5/5

This post triggered me to watch this again. It really is a brilliant film, so original, and there is nothing quite like it. 
 

Easy 5/5

[Gambit]

1 hour ago, kempstar said:

This post triggered me to watch this again. It really is a brilliant film, so original, and there is nothing quite like it. 
 

Easy 5/5

 

After watching it I had a look at Wikipedia and apparently it's inspired by an episode of The Twilight Zone (something I'll have to track down).

[ZOK]

It’s a fairly obvious riff on Philip K Dick’s ‘Time Out of Joint’.

 

Pretty much any SF movie ever made is nicked from PKD in some way - if it’s any good, that is.

[ckny]

On 22/06/2020 at 09:37, ckny said:

We're going to watch The Sinner and then watch The Godfather trilogy, which I was shocked to learn the wife had never seen. Ratings btw will be 4, 5 and 2. Possibly.

 

The Sinner was shite.

 

Finished the Godfather trilogy last night. Ratings revised to 5, 5 and 3.

 

Haven't seen any of them in maybe 10-12 years. I now prefer the first film to the second which, like the third, I thought was confusing and convoluted. Sofia Coppola was nowhere near as bad as I remembered in 3 (or was led to believe by history), she was pretty inoffensive and doesn't really have that much screen time. There's the foundation of a great film in 3 but holy shit is it lost in the labyrinth of a plot.

 

And at what point exactly did Al Pacino lose his acting chops? The understated and nuanced performances in 1 and 2 are replaced by the 'Al Pacino playing Al Pacino' performance we all know. Talking in. Stuttering sentences. Shouting wildly at RANDOM MOMENTS. Are there any video essays on Youtube or anything chronicling his decline, does anyone know?

[Plissken]

The Journey (2017) - Amazon Prime

 

At a crucial moment in the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the leaders of the two sides, the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness ended up sharing a car journey.  This film depicts what could have happened when these two sworn enemies sat down next to each other, alone, for the first time.

 

Well, the key word there is "could".  I mean, the pair of them could have hopped in a spaceship and saved the galaxy from mutant aliens and it would have been just as realistic.  But then this film is about dramatising the relationship between two men who fought for 30 years and ended up the closest of friends.  It absolutely is not a reconstruction of the journey, it isn't how the two of them got on, it's more about why they ended up being known as "The Chuckle Brothers" within Ireland.

 

McGuinness is fantastically played by Colm Meaney with Timothy Spall doing a incredible job of Paisley - at times seeming to chew the scenery, but then that is what Paisley was.  The script treats both sides equally, with Meaney getting sympathy for fighting for his side without shying away from the atrocious acts committed in his name.  Paisley gets to grandstand about not sinking to the depths of his opponent, but coating it in self-righteousness, stubborness and rampaging ego. Spall and Meaney bounce off each other brilliantly and are never less than fun to watch.

 

The supporting cast is OK - John Hurt is there for exposition, Toby Stephens plays Tony Blair as a caricature and Freddie Highmore unobtrusively plays the driver.

 

So, minus a few million points for accuracy, but I'll give it a solid 3/5 for being really quite entertaining.  You'll learn maybe a little (definitely not a lot) but you will laugh a few times on the way.

 

Edit: It should have been called A Royal Night Out At The Troubles.

[Gambit]

Unfriended: Dark Web

 

The first Unfriended was one of those films that sounds utterly shit, but was actually surprisingly decent. Dark Web is pretty much more of the same. All played out in front of a computer screen on a Skype call, it's a tight hour and a half with some decent moments and made for an okay Saturday afternoon viewing. It's now on Netflix.

 

3/5

[Sabreman]

Godfather Part II has such a stellar rep as a sequel that's better than the original, and I won't deny it's an absolute masterpiece - but so is the first! For a movie of its length and scope it seems a bit daft to say it's tight, but every time I revisit it I'm amazed how it flies.

[skondo]

Alien Covenant. 1 out of 5.

 

It wasn't tense, scary or thrilling. Story was dull and it was entirely pointless.

[Transient Curse]

21 Bridges 3/5.

 

Wasn't expecting much and was in danger of falling asleep on the sofa before I put it on so didn't want to risk something I really wanted to see. As it turned out, I thought the film had a good cast, reasonable (though predictable) story and looked brilliant. 

 

On that note,  the look of NY contributes a lot to the movie and caused me to feel a little sad at the thought of a visit to New York (where the film is set - the title relates to the bridges that connect manhatten) being so unrealistic any time soon.

[DarhkFox]

6 hours ago, Gambit said:

Unfriended: Dark Web

 

The first Unfriended was one of those films that sounds utterly shit, but was actually surprisingly decent. Dark Web is pretty much more of the same. All played out in front of a computer screen on a Skype call, it's a tight hour and a half with some decent moments and made for an okay Saturday afternoon viewing. It's now on Netflix.

 

3/5

 

I just watched it too. I agree with your rating. It was a bit silly and i when i looked it up on idmb i was shocked that these people where supposed to be teens  Apparently there was a second ending when watching at the theatres (well, you would get one of two endings at random) but i cant find it and the write up does make it sound like a better (twisted?) ending.

[Stig]

Hamilton (2020)

 

When something becomes so big and hyped you can often built up expectations and feel yourself being let down by them. Well thankfully this wasn't one of those times because this certainty lived up to the hype. For the last 4 years I've heard about this play and how amazing it was, but I didn’t expect it to be anything like that. 2 hours and 20 minutes full of brilliant songs, choreography and storytelling. 

 

I went into this completely blind and watched it solely on the hype. I honestly had no idea that the whole thing was told through song, but it worked so well. Mixing rap, hip hop, pop and soul in with traditional show tunes to tell a 300 year old story was extraordinary and so much fun. 

 

I did worry a little how watching a recorded stage show would translate for home viewing as I've never experienced that before, but it was silly to worry because they've done an absolutely amazing job with it. The direction, camera work and audio is second to none. The audio is probably better than what you'd hear seeing it live to be honest. 

 

The whole cast are amazing and Lin-Manuel Miranda is fantastic in the lead but Daveed Diggs steals the show playing both Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Jonathan Groff was a massive highlight as King George III too. I loved that it was colour-blind casting too.

 

I have a little knowledge of the War of Independence and I think that helps with keeping up in the first half of the show because some of the songs do move quite fast and can be a little hard to keep up with. If I had any criticism of the show it would probably be that but it didn't bother me too much.

 

It really is a great show, fully deserving of its praise and the way they split the story pre and post intermission works really well with the flow. Its entertaining, funny, has some very emphatic and poignant things to say about America and the last 25mins are a real tear jerker.

 

I'm not sure if it counts really because its not a film per se but its shot to number 1 on my list for 2020.

 

5/5

[SpagMasterSwift]

Freaks

 

Good performance from the little girl, best watched with no prior knowledge of the story.

 

3/5

[Mawdlin]

On 03/07/2020 at 12:44, ckny said:

And at what point exactly did Al Pacino lose his acting chops? The understated and nuanced performances in 1 and 2 are replaced by the 'Al Pacino playing Al Pacino' performance we all know. Talking in. Stuttering sentences. Shouting wildly at RANDOM MOMENTS. Are there any video essays on Youtube or anything chronicling his decline, does anyone know?

 

I couldn't agree more. I tried to find something but this pretty much sums it up.

 

 

[Vimster]

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga (2020)

deleted

 

3/5

 

I don't normally do this but it turns out everything I said about this film was factually incorrect, I assumed the leads were good enough singers to carry this off but of course that wasn't the case. So what you're left with are some decent songs amidst a pretty mediocre comedy with a bit of Eurovision fan service. I still say if you love Eurovision you'll definitely get a kick out of this, but as a piece of general entertainment it doesn't hit the mark at all. Iceland still looks gorgeous, and I do have a soft spot for the mashup with the previous Eurovision winners, fully acknowledging this may make some physically ill, if not from motion sickness from the constantly moving camera then the in-your-face look-at-me OTT performances. But hey that's what makes Eurovision Eurovision.

[ZOK]

The Invincibles - 5/5

 

This is a splendid 1995 curio that has cropped up on MUBI, and if you have this service it’s an ESSENTIAL watch.

 

Basically the story of bad things going down for German police and politicians, a SWAT cop is on a mafia bust and is surprised  to find his ex-partner seems to have returned from the dead to fuck up his life.
 

What makes this so special is the stone cold Eurotrashiness of the whole endeavour - the unashamed cynicism, grit and violence, the haircuts, the surprisingly tight plot that still has time to meander all over the place during the 150 minute run time, the restoration by the director that includes deleted scenes straight from his own remaining vhs copy and a subs translation that seems to have been performed by a machine.
 

Set this to a backdrop of sprawling industrial Düsseldorf where everyone is corrupt and useless, and it’s pure magic.

[cassidy]

The Green Mile - hasn't lost a smidge of its emotion and heart in 21years.

 

Goddamn movie has me in tears everytime 5/5

[Popo]

On 21/06/2020 at 23:42, Waggo said:

8/10

 

Edit - and let that be a warning to anyone tempted to give half points. That’s also scoring out of ten, you’ve just rebadged it you fool!

[jonamok]

Ad Astra

 

One of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune to see. Truly dire on every level. While the unending abuses of basic primary school science are its most fucking egregious failings, the writing, performances, effects (bar a few well done scenes), and the primary plot McGuffin (which makes literally no sense, and is resolved nonsensically) all vie for the worst aspect of this absolute fucking space turkey. Utter utter shite. If you have the least understanding of physics, or indeed storytelling, avoid like a needle of Covid in the eye.

 

0/5