Films I watched this week (Vol 2)

[zygalski]

Antony Moxey said:

LuS1fer said:

jcremonini said:

Antony Moxey said:

Three Billboards etc. Talk about emperor’s new clothes, both for the film and lead actress. Zero Billboards out of three Missouris.

I thought it was fantastic myself and is probably one of my top 10 films. Particularly liked the ending where you ask yourself if that guy really was the killer after all. We shall never know...

I cannot comprehend how anyone thinks this film is anything other than epic.

Then that says more about you that you lack the imagination to think people can have a different opinion on something rather than about those who do hold a different opinion I think. I'd seen plenty written - mostly on here - about the film so was looking forward to its release on Sky Movies. However, having seen it, and not following the crowd, I thought it dreadful. The female lead was dreadful too and as wooden as the billboards she hired. The only decent performance was from the excellent as usual Sam Rockwell.

I can comprehend that others liked it, but it wasn't for me. And as for labelling it a dark comedy, I really don't see that at all.

I can't believe it wasn't ghost written/directed by the Coen brothers.

[Brother D]

First Man. Over dramatized. And I fell asleep. 2/10, only because there were a few actual genuine moments of historical footage.


Off to see 2001 on Wednesday at a local IMAX. Probably 10th time I've seen it, but first time on the big screen. Can't wait!

[rasto]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

One thing that has always annoyed me about the films, though, is the central conceit of "humans as batteries". I can understand why they chose that, because people weren't ready for what would have been more plausible. And that is the machines using human brains as organic computers in a vast cloud computing network. You could hang it off the whole "humans only use 10% of their brains" myth and say that it actually wasn't a myth, and that 10% was for making the human think they were in the real world, and the other 90% used by the machines. Some of that processing power would be used for running The Matrix itself. It would all make so much more sense than batteries. But, as I said, most people had little concept of cloud computing / distributed computing / botnets back then and wouldn't have understood.

Have you read Dan Simmons's Hyperion books?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

rasto said:

Have you read Dan Simmons's Hyperion books?

No, I have not.

[rasto]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

rasto said:

Have you read Dan Simmons's Hyperion books?

No, I have not.

If you like Sci Fi and like reading then I can thoroughly recommend them. They cover some of what you talked about. But as this is the films thread I won't thread hijack any further, matrix glitch repaired

[Logan777]

I finally watched Christopher Robin yesterday. I should say, I liked it. And it is great that I can watch it with my children.

[Halb]

Momentim
waste of tie some sort of heist flick, lasted as long as I could, utter dross.

World War Z
absolutely excellent, not what I expected, got a lil lazy/flat/repetitive in the middle, started to tune out as I felt it had run out of ideas, but it reversed that and came back. Felt a ilttle...tv drama towards the end, but was still good. I had vague ideas it had had production/reshoot issues, so I read up on it, the original ending sounded exciting, but ultimately hollow, difficult to know if I would have preferred it, since it would just be back to rinse/repeat cycle.
it's something I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to

[poing]

Logan777 said:

I finally watched Christopher Robin yesterday. I should say, I liked it. And it is great that I can watch it with my children.

I don't have children but I thought it was a rather lovely film.

[Halb]

rasto said:

Have you read Dan Simmons's Hyperion books?

Not read that, but love Illium and Olympos, fantastic stories that are the sort of sci-fi (fantasy/horror/whatver) that I love

[ESOG]

Halb said:

World War Z
absolutely excellent, not what I expected, got a lil lazy/flat/repetitive in the middle, started to tune out as I felt it had run out of ideas, but it reversed that and came back. Felt a ilttle...tv drama towards the end, but was still good. I had vague ideas it had had production/reshoot issues, so I read up on it, the original ending sounded exciting, but ultimately hollow, difficult to know if I would have preferred it, since it would just be back to rinse/repeat cycle.
it's something I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to

Not knocking your opinion of World War Z, but if you have read the book you probably understand why I personally think the movie was terrible in comparison and if only they followed the near perfect outline already bestowed before them I would say then that the movie most likely would have been my all time favorite zombie movie EVER.

Have you read the book?
Also, it is not that the movie is bad. On its own it is one of the better ones, but when compared to its source material it completely misses the target and is total garbage...IMO of course.

Edited to add that a sequel was in preproduction then got pushed back several times that now it seems to have been lost in the shuffle of Hollywood red tape B.S.

[ukaskew]

Two extremely varied nights at the cinema this week...

The Old Man and the Gun

Incredibly understated and chilled movie about three old guys (but mainly Robert Redford) who rob banks with staggering frequency and efficiency, and the detective (Casey Affleck) out to catch them. I really enjoyed it for its confidence in never being flashy and never upping the pace, even the car chases are quite easy going.

Overlord

Or 'the JJ Abrams World War II Nazi Zombie movie'. It's actually far more a World War II movie than it is a sci-fi/horror film. I was invested in that story without the need for the horror stuff to be honest as it's pretty darn tense, but when it arrives the horror stuff is satisfyingly gruesome and entertaining. For a distinctly B movie concept it's extremely well made and acted, visually it's very well put together and the set design etc is top notch.

The opening scene alone is as good a WWII movie sequence as I've seen in some time and would not have been out of place in Saving Private Ryan (in terms of technical/visual and tension, at least).

Edited by ukaskew on Wednesday 7th November 02:57

[Antony Moxey]

ESOG said:

Not knocking your opinion of World War Z, but if you have read the book you probably understand why I personally think the movie was terrible in comparison and if only they followed the near perfect outline already bestowed before them I would say then that the movie most likely would have been my all time favorite zombie movie EVER.

Have you read the book?
Also, it is not that the movie is bad. On its own it is one of the better ones, but when compared to its source material it completely misses the target and is total garbage...IMO of course.

Edited to add that a sequel was in preproduction then got pushed back several times that now it seems to have been lost in the shuffle of Hollywood red tape B.S.

" On its own it is one of the better ones, but when compared to its source material it completely misses the target and is total garbage". Then why compare it it its source material? You've already said it stands on its own, so why not just view it that way instead of comparing it to a book. I never bother reading books so always take films as they come - it's a film, who cares if it's faithful to a book or not? Most films even say 'based on' at the start rather than 'faithful word for word representation of'.

[Halb]

ESOG said:

Halb said:

World War Z
absolutely excellent, not what I expected, got a lil lazy/flat/repetitive in the middle, started to tune out as I felt it had run out of ideas, but it reversed that and came back. Felt a ilttle...tv drama towards the end, but was still good. I had vague ideas it had had production/reshoot issues, so I read up on it, the original ending sounded exciting, but ultimately hollow, difficult to know if I would have preferred it, since it would just be back to rinse/repeat cycle.
it's something I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to

Not knocking your opinion of World War Z, but if you have read the book you probably understand why I personally think the movie was terrible in comparison and if only they followed the near perfect outline already bestowed before them I would say then that the movie most likely would have been my all time favorite zombie movie EVER.

Have you read the book?
Also, it is not that the movie is bad. On its own it is one of the better ones, but when compared to its source material it completely misses the target and is total garbage...IMO of course.

Edited to add that a sequel was in preproduction then got pushed back several times that now it seems to have been lost in the shuffle of Hollywood red tape B.S.

I haven't read the book! Will it knock the film into a hat?

[parabolica]

ukaskew said:

Two extremely varied nights at the cinema this week...

Overlord

Or 'the JJ Abrams World War II Nazi Zombie movie'. It's actually far more a World War II movie than it is a sci-fi/horror film. I was invested in that story without the need for the horror stuff to be honest as it's pretty darn tense, but when it arrives the horror stuff is satisfyingly gruesome and entertaining. For a distinctly B movie concept it's extremely well made and acted, visually it's very well put together and the set design etc is top notch.

The opening scene alone is as good a WWII movie sequence as I've seen in some time and would not have been out of place in Saving Private Ryan (in terms of technical/visual and tension, at least).

Edited by ukaskew on Wednesday 7th November 02:57

Saw the trailer for this the other day; looks like a film adaptation of the Wolfestein videogames, but it actually looks pretty good/promising!

[ukaskew]

Widows

Film #70 at the cinema this year and quite possibly the best of the lot. I was on edge for two hours and at one point physically recoiled (as did half the audience it seemed). Stunning performances and beautifully shot.

Viola Davis for an Oscar nod has to be a good shout, and Daniel Kaluuya was bloody terrifying.

Edited by ukaskew on Wednesday 7th November 23:33

[zygalski]

Calibre on Netflix.
285 out of 308

[Jader1973]

A Good Day to Die Hard is on just now.

The car chase is an absolute continuity disaster! I’d forgotten how bad it is.

[droopsnoot]

I watched "Blackhat" last night, recorded from the TV a few weeks (or maybe months) ago. Most annoying part was the sound level, which seems to vary between Chris Hemsworth mumbling to himself to very loud music and explosions. Usual IT-related codswallop to be glossed over. Starting to work through some films I recorded ages ago now that several series have ended at the same time and I've got a bit of time to catch up.

[DaveGrohl]

Just watched Big Game on Film 4. It set off as a promising Cliffhanger lightweight copy but oh dear it quickly descended into pretty embarrassing stuff. Can't believe Samuel L Jackson and Jim Broadbent agreed to be in this sorry affair. Some of the lines were proper cringe. The young lad was a terrible actor, mind he didn't have much to work with.

It actually looked impressive a lot of the time but the whole thing felt like it was written by a ten year old boy who couldn't be bothered. Having said that, I kinda enjoyed chuckling along at the awfulness of it all. It got a score of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes but an audience score of 34%. I'd say 34% is very very generous. Wtf's that 78% all about?!?

Edited by DaveGrohl on Thursday 8th November 23:02

[justin220]

Man on Fire about to start on film 4.

Absolute classic