What film did you watch last night?

[swee'pea99]

Rewatched 3 Idiots with a couple of friends. I think they enjoyed it. I certainly did - again. It's a great sprawling multi-coloured Indian three hour adventure, full of cod philosophy and staggeringly unsubtle humour (almost unwatchably so at times), with a couple of Bollywood musical extravaganza numbers and some gobsmacking footage of the beauty of India's landscape. Most of all, though, it's a joyous celebration of life, a quite serious questioning of India's current path - all competition, materialism and winner take all - and a fascinating glimpse into another culture, both drawing on and yet still quite distinct from, our own.

 

[Drago]

Passenger 57.

Jumping on the Die Hard/Under Siege bandwagon, where a lone and deeply troubled hard man has to single handedly rescue an entire airliner.

Problem is the cheap production, nasty period music with jangly synths, electronic drums and OTT slap bass, and acting so wooden it makes Ian Beale look like Gielgud.

No redeeming features whatsoever. 0/10.

 

[swee'pea99]

Rio Bravo - an old style Western, and a very good one, with John Wayne doing his usual great performance as John Wayne and Dean Martin surprisingly good as a recovering drunk. A young Angie Dickinson also playing a blinder - not quite Lauren Bacall (who is?) but she gets some great lines and delivers them with aplomb. None of that moral ambiguity nonsense; there's bad guys around need dealing with, and The Duke is on the case. Bang, also bang. They don't make 'em like this any more. More's the pity.

 

[Tin Pot]

No redeeming features whatsoever. 0/10.

<cough> Elizabeth Hurley <cough>

 

[John the Monkey]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Netflix)
I saw this at the cinema on release, and was interested to see how a rewatch worked for me. It's still pretty good, but I do wonder how it would have fared without the weight of the Star Wars mythology and fandom behind it. As it is, it's an exciting enough sci-fi action film that manages the tricky balancing act of paying homage to the earlier canon whilst handing the torch to the new characters, at least partially. I'm not convinced that it would stand up to repeated watches, personally.

 

[AndyRM]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Netflix)
I saw this at the cinema on release, and was interested to see how a rewatch worked for me. It's still pretty good, but I do wonder how it would have fared without the weight of the Star Wars mythology and fandom behind it. As it is, it's an exciting enough sci-fi action film that manages the tricky balancing act of paying homage to the earlier canon whilst handing the torch to the new characters, at least partially. I'm not convinced that it would stand up to repeated watches, personally.

Are we the same person?

 

[John the Monkey]

Are we the same person?

Now you mention it, I've never seen us in the same room together.

 

[Adam4868]

Are we the same person?

Now you mention it, I've never seen us in the same room together.

We all came from apes .....

 

[MontyVeda]

An old TV movie/tele-play called Stars of the Roller State Disco (1984). It's possibly the weirdest film i've seen recently, or at least the film with the weirdest setting: a youth hostel that's also a roller disco and a job centre. I don't even know how to start rating this film. It wasn't great but it was watchable... i tend to turn things off after 20 minutes if they're not doing it for me ...but i stuck with Stars of the Roller State Disco to it's bitter end.

Another TV movie/drama titled A Relative Stranger (1996). A bloke wakes up and can't remember anything from the last 20 years... as far as he's concerned, yesterday was 1975. He doesn't recognise his wife or kids, home or workmates, and the more he learns about himself, the more he realises that those close to him tolerate him rather than like him. It's a sort of twisted version of Scrooge i guess... in so much the central character is given an opportunity to review his life from a new perspective and come out of it a better person.

 

[John the Monkey]

He cuts and pastes from Rotten Tomatoes

All my own work, although I do share across another community that's Film/TV focussed.

I was lucky enough to contribute to a film review podcast at a time when a lot of talented people did so as well - their thinking about film, and explaining what was good (even in bad films) and bad (even in good films) influenced me a lot.

 

[swee'pea99]

The Entertainer, with Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice, a has been man in the has been institution that was the dying dregs of music hall in post-war Britain, presented as a place of slow, shabby decline and quiet desperation. Only visiting IMDB afterwards did I discover the film to be an allegory for the end of empire - one of those 'of course! Why didn't I see it?' moments. Almost Shakespearean in its scope, audacity, and, ultimately, triumph. Olivier is superb, and ably supported by the likes of Albert Finney, Alan Bates (both in their first film appearances) and Joan Plowright. One of the few truly great British movies. All the more poignant for me, noting from the final credits how it was made in the year I was born; reminding me just how long I've been around, and how much the world has changed in my lifetime.

 

[Sandra6]

Miracle on 34th street - both versions.
The original is still the best.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2

Both really excellent films. Gratuitous violence and a stunt every few seconds, but great films. Willem Dafoe is great as the cautious friend and Michael Nyqvist makes a good villain. Cameos from John Leguiziamo (in both) and Peter Stormare (in the sequel). The villains’ fear of John Wick is palpable which is what really makes these films.

“John Wick is not the boogeyman. He’s the guy you send to kill the boogeyman.”

It makes sense about the stunts as the director was Keanu Reeves’ stunt double in The Matrix films.

It was announced that a third film will be made to form a trilogy.

 

[gbb]

Just come in from my ride, my wife is watching Navy Seals, The Battle For New Orleans.
You know when you'e 5 minutes into a film and you just know it' going to be carp...well this is one of them...utter carp.

Manly men, growly voices, overly acted scenes...and sound effects I last heard in Space 1999 from the 70s.

Think I'll go nail my fingers to the kitchen worktop...using blunt nails and a bent hammer.

 

[gbb]

Just come in from my ride, my wife is watching Navy Seals, The Battle For New Orleans.
You know when you'e 5 minutes into a film and you just know it' going to be carp...well this is one of them...utter carp.

Manly men, growly voices, overly acted scenes...and sound effects I last heard in Space 1999 from the 70s.

Think I'll go nail my fingers to the kitchen worktop...using blunt nails and a bent hammer.

I'm surprised my wife is still watching it ...I've resorted to net surfing and intermittently taking the pith out of the scenes.