Seen Any Good Films Lately?

[RoverAndOut 3,478]

Went to see Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" at the weekend. Can confirm both strands of the critics reviews are valid and accurate:

 

1. It is too long - you could easily trim off 30 mins to an hour without it making any difference to the plot.

2. It is an excellent film. The performances are great, the attention to detail of Indian culture is thoughtful, the story maintains your interest once it gets going and it is an astonishing tale when you realise it is a true story (and almost all the major details are historically accurate).

 

Won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed it (although my bladder was cursing me a little for the last half an hour!).

[Cropsy 42]

I watched the 1980 Italian found footage movie Cannibal Holocaust the other night. Well made movie that probably paved the way for the Blair Witch etc, but a very rough watch due to sexual violence and very realistic looking gore effects.

[Fridaythe13th 71]

32 minutes ago, Cropsy said:

I watched the 1980 Italian found footage movie Cannibal Holocaust the other night. Well made movie that probably paved the way for the Blair Witch etc, but a very rough watch due to sexual violence and very realistic looking gore effects.

I own that movie! The director was taken to court cuz ppl thought this actor were killed in it. 

[Toast 14,847]

4 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

I'm a closet Swiftie. In that, I don't own any of her albums, I am not going to the cinema to see the Era Tour, but can't help but admire her cultural significance and the fact she seems to keep churning out decent music at an alarming rate. It is quite incredible to see - in the USA, Scorsese's latest masterpiece debuted at No. 2 in the box office BEHIND Taylor Swift, who's already been out a week! This is an insane, if not unhealthy, level of fandom, and while she must be incredibly grateful on one level, it must be exhausting and unnerving on another. And I accept the inevitable counter argument that she invites a certain level of "celebrity" on herself.

 

*Confirming my lack of Swiftie credentials, I have absolutely no idea what that acronym is meant to mean...

 

You might be interested in HG Tudor's commentary on TS's strategy in producing and distributing her own film.

He has identified her as a high-functioning ("Greater") narcissist, and has done many more videos discussing her.

 

 

[Toast 14,847]

I've just watched Saltburn, which to my surprise is on Amazon Prime.  I was actually considering going to see this in the cinema, but there wasn't a convenient showing, so this is a bonus.

Anyway

It sounded as though it was going to be a bit like Brideshead Revisited, but there's more to it than that.  It's pretty dark but funny at the same time and there are a couple of scenes that will make your toes curl also a memorable closing scene which some of you would enjoy 

 

It won't be everybody's cup of tea but I enjoyed it and there are some terrific performances from the likes of Rosamund Pike, Richard E Grant, Carey Mulligan et al and principally from Barry Keoghan as the central character.

[maryportfuncity 10,017]

Carey Mulligan gets a shout out in the post above - she's awesomely good in Maestro, which Mrs MPFC and myself watched yesterday, because that's just dropped on Netflix.

[Gisooo 2,542]

I just watched yesterday The Son (2022) with Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby and Anthony Hopkins

 

Very touching and realistic about the lives of teenagers today with divorced parents. The ending was devastating, I cried because of the fact that a father tries his best to protect his son in all ways but in fact he fails and blames himself for everything!

[Charles De Gaulle 360]

On 23/10/2023 at 16:09, RoverAndOut said:

Went to see Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" at the weekend. Can confirm both strands of the critics reviews are valid and accurate:

 

1. It is too long - you could easily trim off 30 mins to an hour without it making any difference to the plot.

2. It is an excellent film. The performances are great, the attention to detail of Indian culture is thoughtful, the story maintains your interest once it gets going and it is an astonishing tale when you realise it is a true story (and almost all the major details are historically accurate).

 

Won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed it (although my bladder was cursing me a little for the last half an hour!).

I didn't like that flim very much. The story would of been much better as a TV miniseries rather than a movie. It's three hours long yet it still feel like it's incredibly rushed. You are just whipped from one point to another and there's not a whole lot of time to breath. Also I disliked the ending.

 

Also there's been a noted trend where nowadays there seems to be fewer movie stars than before. (Look up death of the movie star for more on this). And the fact that characters are so blatantly aged up really proves this. Leo in his late forties is left unbelievably portraying a man in his mid 20s pretty much because studios are unwilling to take a chance on a newcomer who would be young enough to believable in that role. And I think the flim suffers due to this because Leo would of been much playing Robert De Niro's character (who in real life was around the same age as Leo during the events the movie depicts). I dunno definitely not Scorsese's best imo.

[Bibliogryphon 8,662]

Just been on my first cinema trip of 2024 and it was the absolutely fantastic Wonka.

 

It is pure joy an almost perfect family film. It takes nothing away from the Roald Dahl books and should leave you with a smile on your face.

[Gisooo 2,542]

2 hours ago, Bibliogryphon said:

Just been on my first cinema trip of 2024 and it was the absolutely fantastic Wonka.

 

It is pure joy an almost perfect family film. It takes nothing away from the Roald Dahl books and should leave you with a smile on your face.

 

Yes Wonka was so beautiful. Timothee is amazing but I think he and Margot Robbie (for Barbie) will not be nominated for an Oscar, but they did for a Golden Globe (Leading role in Musical and Comedy film)

[Sir Creep 7,013]

Went to the cinema with my daughter.  
The movie isn’t relevant (Trolls 3).

The SEATS, however, are.  They must have remodeled and there are only about 40% of the seats as before, but that’s bc everyone gets a leather recliner ffs!  It was fantastic!  Is this a thing now?  I was wondering why there was a seating chart online, but this explains it.

[Toast 14,847]

The Banshees of Inisherin. 

My disappointment cannot be overstated.

I was expecting something along the lines of Waking Ned, dark comedy with gentle Irish humour.  But this was horrible, depressing,  and not credible. 

The actors were good, as was the scenery, but there was precious little humour and not much going on. Very repetitive.  And inexplicably gruesome.

Bafflingly it got loads of Oscar nominations, and justly won none.

 

Spoiler

 

Man chops off his own fingers as an act of spite against his friend.  Throws them at friend's cottage door, where his pet donkey chokes to death on one of them.

I think that says enough.

 

 

[Commtech Sio Bibble 1,367]

I watched Saltburn and was incredibly uncomfortable for a lot of it, but would watch it again. 8/10

[Sir Creep 7,013]

1 hour ago, Commtech Sio Bibble said:

I watched Saltburn and was incredibly uncomfortable for a lot of it, but would watch it again. 8/10

That’s how I feel each day I sign onto Deathlist.

[Sir Creep 7,013]

2 hours ago, Toast said:

The Banshees of Inisherin. 

My disappointment cannot be overstated.

I was expecting something along the lines of Waking Ned, dark comedy with gentle Irish humour.  But this was horrible, depressing,  and not credible. 

The actors were good, as was the scenery, but there was precious little humour and not much going on. Very repetitive.  And inexplicably gruesome.

Bafflingly it got loads of Oscar nominations, and justly won none.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Man chops off his own fingers as an act of spite against his friend.  Throws them at friend's cottage door, where his pet donkey chokes to death on one of them.

I think that says enough.

 

 

Sorry to hear you didn’t like it.  Many I know, self included, enjoyed it. Waking Ned, though, it wasn’t. I don’t pay heed to awards shows as an indicator of quality or an absence therefrom indicating the opposite.

[Salmon Mousse 466]

To those who don't mind reading subtitles I highly recommend Godzilla Minus One.  Excellent piece of cinema that rises well above it's genre.

[Commtech Sio Bibble 1,367]

I watched the original Mean Girls last year and surprisingly enjoyed it, enough to the point where I re-watched it over Christmas. Today I watched the film adaptation of the broadway adaptation and it isn't good. It removes a lot of the substance of the film and feels very rushed and forced, certain characters have their entire arcs removed from the film and although some of the songs are catchy the lyrics are utter drivel.

[RoverAndOut 3,478]

After a two month absence (unheard of outside of Covid times recently - life got in the way), I've been to the cinema 3 times in the past fortnight for 3 quite different films:

 

Wonka - as Biblio said, it was a pleasant, family friendly couple of hours. Put a smile on your face and Chalamet was charming. There was just enough mystique about him that you could imagine him becoming more jaded in later years and turning into Gene Wilder. Just about.

 

Ferrari - biopic of Enzo, the founder of the Ferrari marque. Interesting film, certainly not a reverent puff piece (the film starts with him waking up in bed with his mistress!) but it was a strange film, lacking in direction and plot. It didn't tell his life story, had a few different stories it was sort of telling and didn't really conclude its main arc beyond the fact we know the Ferrari brand survived. The final act was very brief, and I was surprised it was finished when it was, it felt like it needed another half an hour. Adam Driver pretty good in the title role and the racing scenes were well done (including a particularly graphic crash).It was nice to see representations of names that I've only really read about in books before (Gendebien, Peter Collins, Piero Taruffi, de Portago). But not the greatest movie I've ever seen.

 

One Life - biopic of Nicholas Winton, mainly set in the 1930s, but as a flashback to the That's Life appearances of the 1980s. Johnny Flynn really good as the young Nicky, Helena Bonham Carter a scene stealer as his mother and an extraordinary story, which I have to say I only knew in passing. What they achieved was incredible and the impact he made was significant, but it was nice that the film acknowledged the others involved - Trevor and Doreen (I think Hanna the Czech liaison was a fictionalised composite?). Definitely shed a couple of tears, it was powerful stuff.

 

I won't be watching Saltburn, nor Poor Things. The Holdovers is next week's offering I think.

[maryportfuncity 10,017]

Anyone seen Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey?

 

Found the thought of it amusing when it came out but wasn't remotely bothered. Given the fact it's now lined up for Golden Raspberry gold I'm thinking we could be in spectacularly dire territory, so bad it's worth seeing. 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh:_Blood_and_Honey#:~:text=Winnie-the-Pooh%3A Blood and Honey is a 2023,to A. A. Milne and E. H.

 

 

[Toast 14,847]

6 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

I won't be watching Saltburn

 

Aww, I loved Saltburn.  Barry Keoghan is tremendous.

[En Passant 2,955]

13 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

The Holdovers

 

My money is on some kind of contact lens. No way anybody is acting that.

Not that I could actually see it even though I was looking quite hard for it.

Enjoyed the film though and even went back and found a few previous Alexander Payne films since I'd not heard of him.

Sadly I thought less of Downsizing as an opportunity largely missed and found Sideways too formulaic and embarrassing*, still nevermind I've got Election yet to go.

 

Saltburn I'm undecided on whether to invest the time yet or not.

 

*I must be one of the few people on planet earth that doesn't find other people's embarrassing situations uproariously amusing, I'm afraid I just cringe which isn't something I want to pay to do. Shrug.

 

 

11 hours ago, maryportfuncity said:

Anyone seen Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey?

 

Not yet....

 

11 hours ago, maryportfuncity said:

so bad it's worth seeing.

 

Or indeed it appears - ever will.

[RoverAndOut 3,478]

On 27/01/2024 at 10:16, En Passant said:

My money is on some kind of contact lens. No way anybody is acting that.

Not that I could actually see it even though I was looking quite hard for it.

Enjoyed the film though and even went back and found a few previous Alexander Payne films since I'd not heard of him.

Sadly I thought less of Downsizing as an opportunity largely missed and found Sideways too formulaic and embarrassing*, still nevermind I've got Election yet to go.

 

Had no idea what your first bit referred to having not seen the film - saw it last night. Enjoyed it very much, a melancholy little tale though. Agree, must have been a contact lens, I was trying to wrack my brains wondering if I'd never noticed that Paul Giamatti had such a severe lazy eye. My friend confirmed not.

 

I saw Downsizing at the cinema a few years ago - was not very impressed. It looked good from the trailer but fell somewhat flat. This was much better. Not seen the other 2, although I am aware of Election.

[time 7,968]

I hadn't actually been to the cinema for years (possibly decades - when was Toy Story released?) but went in December to see Tish, a documentary about photographer Tish Murtha. Worth your time if you're into that sort of things. Also thanks to the government's latest three word slogan, it was cheaper to see it in a cinema 10 miles away than walk to the one round the corner. (If we forget the price of the beer). Almost went again but let down by the buses.

[RoverAndOut 3,478]

1 hour ago, time said:

I hadn't actually been to the cinema for years (possibly decades - when was Toy Story released?) but went in December to see Tish, a documentary about photographer Tish Murtha. Worth your time if you're into that sort of things. Also thanks to the government's latest three word slogan, it was cheaper to see it in a cinema 10 miles away than walk to the one round the corner. (If we forget the price of the beer). Almost went again but let down by the buses.

 

Toy Story was 1995, which I'm sickened to say is one year off being 30 years old. 

 

What three word slogan is this? They come up with so many shit ones a year, I've no idea which specific one you're referring to and can't think of one relating to cinemas.

[time 7,968]

12 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Toy Story was 1995, which I'm sickened to say is one year off being 30 years old. 

 

What three word slogan is this? They come up with so many shit ones a year, I've no idea which specific one you're referring to and can't think of one relating to cinemas.

Help for Households - apparently the capping of bus fares at £2 falls under that umbrella.

 

Entrance fee for local cinema £13.00 plus 70p booking fee, as opposed to 2 buses at £2.00 each plus cinema entry fee at £9.00, net saving of 70p. (less £6.50 for a pint, net loss £5.80).