Good films I watched this weekend (Vol 2)
Discussion
Interstellar
Hmm interesting film. Didn't care for the end, didn't think Matt Damon needed to act as he did for the extra jeopardy.
Enjoyed the quandary about time on planet vs fuel vs effect on back home etc
Reminded me of sunshine another great sci fi let down by the ending.
2010 meets prince of darkness.
Hmm interesting film. Didn't care for the end, didn't think Matt Damon needed to act as he did for the extra jeopardy.
Enjoyed the quandary about time on planet vs fuel vs effect on back home etc
Reminded me of sunshine another great sci fi let down by the ending.
2010 meets prince of darkness.
Edited by Pesty on Monday 6th April 17:40
The Machine
A low-budget British film from 2013, found on Netflix. Loved it.
Set in a dystopian future and the quest for AI to destroy other governments.
It has some genuine shocking moments and lots of references to other sci-fi, such as Blake's 7, Terminator, Metropolis and Bladerunner, which I liked spotting.
Great score which is very John Foxx and The Normal.
You'll need a good TV, (I have a Kuro), as it's almost all set in underground bunkers, dimly lit with harsh fluorescent lighting, which will crush blacks and all other detail hiding in the shadows.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_machine_2013/
8/10
A low-budget British film from 2013, found on Netflix. Loved it.
Set in a dystopian future and the quest for AI to destroy other governments.
It has some genuine shocking moments and lots of references to other sci-fi, such as Blake's 7, Terminator, Metropolis and Bladerunner, which I liked spotting.
Great score which is very John Foxx and The Normal.
You'll need a good TV, (I have a Kuro), as it's almost all set in underground bunkers, dimly lit with harsh fluorescent lighting, which will crush blacks and all other detail hiding in the shadows.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_machine_2013/
8/10
Edited by mp3manager on Monday 6th April 05:55
Nyphur said:
White Tiger.
Saw it mentioned earlier in this thread so gave it a watch.
I enjoyed it, but it really felt like they had 3 films/plots and tried to sandwich them into one.
Spoilers below...
After the final tank battle with the White Tiger in the village, the film completely lost its way for me. The painfully long peace agreement scene, then dragged out scenes of POW's and the "War is man's natural state" speech from (I presume) Hitler?
Put a bit of a dampener on an otherwise very good film, but overall enjoyable.
Watched last night. ^ What he said. Exactly. Lebanon was much more intense. fury more entertaining. Saw it mentioned earlier in this thread so gave it a watch.
I enjoyed it, but it really felt like they had 3 films/plots and tried to sandwich them into one.
Spoilers below...
After the final tank battle with the White Tiger in the village, the film completely lost its way for me. The painfully long peace agreement scene, then dragged out scenes of POW's and the "War is man's natural state" speech from (I presume) Hitler?
Put a bit of a dampener on an otherwise very good film, but overall enjoyable.
Pesty said:
Interstellar
Hmm interesting film. Didn't care for the end, didn't think Matt Damon needed to act as he did for the extra jeopardy.
Enjoyed the quandary about time on planet vs fuel vs effect on back home etc
Reminded me of sunshine never great sci fi let down by the ending.
2010 meets prince of darkness.
Could have done without the last 5 mins, but I was surprised how much I liked it. Yes, he mumbles, but having just watched True Detective, I didn't have a problem. Those who said they didn't understand it should keep up at the back, it's not even in the same league of complexity/weirdness as 2001.Hmm interesting film. Didn't care for the end, didn't think Matt Damon needed to act as he did for the extra jeopardy.
Enjoyed the quandary about time on planet vs fuel vs effect on back home etc
Reminded me of sunshine never great sci fi let down by the ending.
2010 meets prince of darkness.
Nice plot I thought.
I had the big screen and the 5:1 turned up to max, and give it a solid 8/10
GetCarter said:
Those who said they didn't understand it should keep up at the back, it's not even in the same league of complexity/weirdness as 2001.
Agreed. On re-watching it at the weekend, the places that they "Lets stop and talk about the plot so everyone understands whats going on" became more obvious. There were a few!2001 is noticeably ambiguous and pedestrian in comparison. That said, you can see the similarities of there being:
A wormhole left by future humans around an outer planet. Going to that wormhole.
Entering that wormhole/black hole and being presented with a constructed 'room' of modified space time so the human traveller can understand their place in the universe.
Are all themes so particular, that even if you ignore the 'in jokes' about TARS threatening to eject someone out of an airlock, the bookcase scene looking like the internals of HAL and the organ heavy crescendos in the score that the nod to 2001 is very clear.
JonRB said:
Halb said:
Yeah, it's very good and is one of my faves of SG.
I've had to delete it without watching it though, as the SG films are now stacking up, and there are some I've missed on the original run last year.
A few years ago I swapped out the HDD in my Sky+ HD box for the biggest one it can address (I think it was a 2GB or maybe a 3GB - I can't remember to be honest. There is a limit to what it can address in firmware anyway, making drives bigger than the maximum a pointless purchase). I've had to delete it without watching it though, as the SG films are now stacking up, and there are some I've missed on the original run last year.
Right now I have all the Ghibli films that have been screened this season so far, plus a stack of other films, loads of past episodes of Wheeler Dealers, a few series of Red Dwarf, etc, etc., and it's still showing 67% free. Yay!
It was a bit of a pig to do it though - you have to completely disassemble the Sky box because the HDD is right at the bottom, under the mother board. It was fairly straightforward though and I found it quite fun. There are decent tutorials online and you just follow the steps.
Also, with the right software, you can even transfer over all your recordings from your old HDD to the new one. You need to go for the paid version at £10 though, which considering how good the software was and how well supported it was, I thought was fair enough and gladly paid in order to support the developer.
Edited by JonRB on Friday 3rd April 23:42
Did you mean Terabytes, not Gigabytes?
Asterix said:
GetCarter said:
Have to say, I loved the score. Not anything I couldn't do mind 
2001 meets Koyaanisqatsi
I think HZ was given the synopsis of the film on a single sheet of paper with Nolan's direction to forget everything he'd ever done before. 2001 meets Koyaanisqatsi
That was it.
Awesome piece of work.
I didn't enjoy the film that much first time round but after watching it again at home I've started to appreciate it more. Prior to re-watching it I would have given it 6/10 but it's more like an 8/10 for me now.
Fury. IIRC earlier in this thread a few people said its full of inaccuracies but not being a tank buff this didn't affect me. It's a good film which I'll probably never watch again, but I enjoyed it very much. As with anything WWII related, it's made me want to watch Band Of Brothers from start to finish again.
JustinP1 said:
Leviathan
Russian film, just come onto blu-ray/dvd after being nominated for best foreign language film at the Oscars.
It's about a small family in a rural Russian coastal town. People work in the fish gutting factory, fix cars, get by, drink copious amounts of vodka and shoot guns for fun, all the while kowtowing to institutionally corrupt public servants.
The story starts with the family appealing a legal decision that their house should be bought at a pittance in a government purchase at the behest of the corrupt Mayor. The father's old friend, a lawyer from Moscow arrives and helps them fight the system.
It's 2 hours and 20 minutes. Exciting it is not (well apart from a couple of places).
What it is is an almost a first hand insight to a very real way of living for millions of people, very well acted, perfectly believable, with what is a very large and beautiful landscape that his seldom filmed, beautifully shot.
I will say that if you are looking for an action film, you will not sit though it. However, if you liked and appreciated the style and qualities of "The Great Beauty" for example then this is for you. 8/10.
Just watched this. You've summed it up really well.Russian film, just come onto blu-ray/dvd after being nominated for best foreign language film at the Oscars.
It's about a small family in a rural Russian coastal town. People work in the fish gutting factory, fix cars, get by, drink copious amounts of vodka and shoot guns for fun, all the while kowtowing to institutionally corrupt public servants.
The story starts with the family appealing a legal decision that their house should be bought at a pittance in a government purchase at the behest of the corrupt Mayor. The father's old friend, a lawyer from Moscow arrives and helps them fight the system.
It's 2 hours and 20 minutes. Exciting it is not (well apart from a couple of places).
What it is is an almost a first hand insight to a very real way of living for millions of people, very well acted, perfectly believable, with what is a very large and beautiful landscape that his seldom filmed, beautifully shot.
I will say that if you are looking for an action film, you will not sit though it. However, if you liked and appreciated the style and qualities of "The Great Beauty" for example then this is for you. 8/10.
Bloody depressing and made even "worse" by the complete absense of any discernable score (barring the credits.... I think?).
Worth a watch.
TV series rather than Film, but watched 10+ episodes of 'Capital City' this weekend and it's now my favourite City drama ever.
Instead of going away for Easter I watched everything from Wall Street to Boiler Room, back to back. And found this gem.
Awesome depiction of early 90s life in the City Of London - doesn't have excess of Wall Street and seems so eerily familiar to any Londoner.
It also features a lemon yellow air-cooled Porsche for PH'ers. 9.9 / 10
Instead of going away for Easter I watched everything from Wall Street to Boiler Room, back to back. And found this gem.
Awesome depiction of early 90s life in the City Of London - doesn't have excess of Wall Street and seems so eerily familiar to any Londoner.
It also features a lemon yellow air-cooled Porsche for PH'ers. 9.9 / 10
Furious 7;
It's not a great film, the earlier ones worked because of the banter and humour between the characters, it was almost Star Wars-esque with the comradery between them, you felt compelled to root for them even though it was a silly OTT film.
The first three films were low budget and all about cars n girls but easy to watch, when they made a 4th it was a surprise but they successfully expanded the idea to tie the first 2 films together (leaving the weaker 3rd on in a parallel universe), 5 & 6 successfully turned the street racing into some kind of heist / Mission Impossible affair, the street racers were now tech experts and highly trained, we just accepted this and went along with the ridiculously over the top story as it a was just entertaining & fun, lots of humour throughout.
I think they should have left it alone at 6 as it nicely wrapped up the whole saga bar the anomalous part 3.
7 is a different beast, with the loss of Paul Walker they were forced to construct a film using bits of other footage they had of him, the handful of scenes they had for the new one and CGI recreations using his brother (it's quite clever to watch how they did it). With a new director to boot it's now overblown and broken, nothing more than another generic Michael Bay type explosion fest, the cars are mostly forgotten now, and there's this uneasy awkwardness and sadness throughout. It would have been interesting to know what the film would have been if they hadn't had to rely on scraps of footage and heavy hearts. The Walker send-off was a nice touch and ultimately was why the film is worth a watch. It has its moments but is certainly the weakest since Tokyo Drift, I think their decision to make two more films is stretching the whole concept just too far, it's past time to let the franchise drive off into the sunset.
6.5/10
It's not a great film, the earlier ones worked because of the banter and humour between the characters, it was almost Star Wars-esque with the comradery between them, you felt compelled to root for them even though it was a silly OTT film.
The first three films were low budget and all about cars n girls but easy to watch, when they made a 4th it was a surprise but they successfully expanded the idea to tie the first 2 films together (leaving the weaker 3rd on in a parallel universe), 5 & 6 successfully turned the street racing into some kind of heist / Mission Impossible affair, the street racers were now tech experts and highly trained, we just accepted this and went along with the ridiculously over the top story as it a was just entertaining & fun, lots of humour throughout.
I think they should have left it alone at 6 as it nicely wrapped up the whole saga bar the anomalous part 3.
7 is a different beast, with the loss of Paul Walker they were forced to construct a film using bits of other footage they had of him, the handful of scenes they had for the new one and CGI recreations using his brother (it's quite clever to watch how they did it). With a new director to boot it's now overblown and broken, nothing more than another generic Michael Bay type explosion fest, the cars are mostly forgotten now, and there's this uneasy awkwardness and sadness throughout. It would have been interesting to know what the film would have been if they hadn't had to rely on scraps of footage and heavy hearts. The Walker send-off was a nice touch and ultimately was why the film is worth a watch. It has its moments but is certainly the weakest since Tokyo Drift, I think their decision to make two more films is stretching the whole concept just too far, it's past time to let the franchise drive off into the sunset.
6.5/10
fido said:
TV series rather than Film, but watched 10+ episodes of 'Capital City' this weekend and it's now my favourite City drama ever.
Instead of going away for Easter I watched everything from Wall Street to Boiler Room, back to back. And found this gem.
Awesome depiction of early 90s life in the City Of London - doesn't have excess of Wall Street and seems so eerily familiar to any Londoner.
It also features a lemon yellow air-cooled Porsche for PH'ers. 9.9 / 10
In a similar financial vein I watched Margin Call recently which I thought was excellent - set in a fictional US bank over the course of several hours & about the recent financial crash. Instead of going away for Easter I watched everything from Wall Street to Boiler Room, back to back. And found this gem.
Awesome depiction of early 90s life in the City Of London - doesn't have excess of Wall Street and seems so eerily familiar to any Londoner.
It also features a lemon yellow air-cooled Porsche for PH'ers. 9.9 / 10
Cap City sounds interesting.
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