Film Thread

[John]

Watched John Wick the other night - plot was an absolute load of horse cock, but the man sure does love headshots.

I thought it was quite self aware when it comes to the plot. Half the characters in the film look perplexed when they find out why he's on a rampage. It's directed by a stuntman, so it's little surprise there's more focus on shooting and jumping than storytelling.

The real nonsensical plot will come into play in the TV show, which is being written by the stuntman.

[Ian]

I suppose I'd better spoiler this in case anybody's planning to watch it soon with the sequel coming out:

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John Wick is a hoot but it's like somebody watched Shooter, saw Marky Mark say "You don't understand, these boys killed my dog." and went, "What if that was the entire plot?"

I bet the sequel suffers for being a bit more straight-laced.

[Dark Soldier]

Has nobody else watched Raw yet?

Lads.

[John]

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They nicked his car too, remember. By the way, that must be the smallest ever role taken on by a fairly big name actress for Bridget Moynahan. She has one line and never actually appears onscreen.

I watched the first ten minutes of the sequel and it seems every bit as bonkers. It has a rehash of the 'HE'S JOHN FUCKIN' WICK' speech delivered with maximum scenery consumption by Peter Stormare

[SvN]

Has nobody else watched Raw yet?

Lads.

I haven't, but I watched Hounds of Love the other day on your recommendation. I thought it was great, it felt real and gritty, without being over the top. The main guy was superb, he played the part to perfection.

[Dark Soldier]

I haven't, but I watched Hounds of Love the other day on your recommendation. I thought it was great, it felt real and gritty, without being over the top. The main guy was superb, he played the part to perfection.

A particular scene:

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the dog

hit me harder than everything else. I've always found it odd how

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animal torture/death hits me more than the rape/abuse of humans in film

[randomlegend]

Is "Get Out" good?

Dunno how to search the thread for reviews cus the words are too short.

[Dark Soldier]

Overhyped, serviceable guff.

[John Arne]

Just watching Life. Fucking stupid shit.

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Don't enter the quarantined room - that's all you have to avoid - don't go in the quarantined room".
Two seconds later, the stupid cunt opens the door to the room.
Why do all space films have such incompetent, stupid crew (gravity/prometheus/life)

[John]

I'm torn on The Hippopotamus. On the one hand it's based on a book written by Stephen Fry about a poet turned theatre critic, so it's likely to have the highest concentration of smug and pretentious nonsense ever found in the DNA of a film. On the other it has Roger Allam doing a bit of swearing, and in general I'd go to a warzone to watch that.

[Alan Shearer The 2nd]

I'm torn on The Hippopotamus. On the one hand it's based on a book written by Stephen Fry about a poet turned theatre critic, so it's likely to have the highest concentration of smug and pretentious nonsense ever found in the DNA of a film. On the other it has Roger Allam doing a bit of swearing, and in general I'd go to a warzone to watch that.

Looks decent from the trailer. When I watch Roger Allam, all I see is Peter Mannion MP, although that's no bad thing, he's class.

[Reg]

Saw Wonder Woman tonight. Wouldn't have been my choice - not a massive superhero film fan - but fun enough overall. However:

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The final 30 minutes or so knocked a few points off, for me. I kind of zone out whenever a Marvel/DC film becomes too much about super powers. There's also something every film should try to avoid: a monologue that suddenly sums up the film and unravels whatever mystery there might be. "Oops, we've run out of credible plot devices, have some crap dialogue for a couple minutes." Up until that point the connection with the war and some of the jokes about her not knowing everyday etiquette/objects were quite clever. And I even enjoyed the bit in no man's land which was verging on too silly but at least a little more 'relatable' than the daft last half hour.

The acting was actually decent. The leads are good.

[Dark Soldier]

Marvel/DC fans don't understand nuance in cinema, just a checklist of woop yeah I know this reference moments, hence your spoiler.

[SvN]

I watched The Secret in their Eyes last night and thought it was great, although perhaps not as good as I was hoping. I'm not one for usually watching subtitled films, but those I do watch are usually outstanding. I'd say this one was just "good".

I will say that the absolutely TERRIBLE aging makeup they used was horribly distracting. I'm pretty sure I could've done a better job with some paper mache.

[Henry]

Watched Serpico, as part of my occasional quest to watch older films with big reputations. It's pretty good. Early Pacino is the best thing about it, he was a magnificent actor back in the 70s.
Is there a Jesus thing going on with him or am I imagining that? He gets progressively more Jesus-looking as the film goes on.

[Shindig]

Nah, he just gets more San Francisco. Pacino before his voice went to shit is peak Pacino.

[John]

The Brendan Gleeson interview from yesterday's Kermode and Mayo is delightful.

[SvN]

Serpico is brilliant, my favourite Pacino film after the Godfathers. He really was a truly magnificent actor in the 70s. He was still excellent through to the 90s even after his voice went, but it's been over a decade since he put in a truly great performance. If this Irishman film ends up happening, it's probably his last chance.

One of his most underrated early performances is in Scarecrow with Gene Hackman - worth a watch.

[Henry]

Can't decide if his best was Godfather Part 2 or Scarface. You would barely believe those are the same man.

[Foe]

Watched The Danish Girl a couple of days ago which was a little disappointing. Saw far too much penis, and nowehere near enough of the beautiful Alicia Vilkander

[Dark Soldier]

Daniel Day Lewis to retire from acting:

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/da...er-1202472766/

An all time great, jah bless sir.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Didn't realise he was 60.

Wonder if he has some sort of health issues or something.

[Dark Soldier]

Probably just loaded, and has the self respect to retire before he becomes like De Niro.

[John]

The method master once learned Czech to play a philandering doctor in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” listened to Eminem records to channel rage in “Gangs of New York,” and confined himself to a wheelchair for “My Left Foot” to play Brown, who had cerebral palsy.

One of these things is not like the others.

He's worth a quarter of a billion apparently, so he's set himself up to have a lovely retirement.

[Lewis]

Issuing a statement seems a bit out of character, when you could just stop making films and go out without the fuss. He's probably ill.

[Spoonsky]

My Cousin Rachel was enjoyable enough. Rachel Weisz is lovely.

[Henry]

Wonder Woman is not as good as advertised. The writing in particular, is genuinely shite.

[John]

Misogynist.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Issuing a statement seems a bit out of character, when you could just stop making films and go out without the fuss. He's probably ill.

When I saw it I thought it was a 'dead tomorrow' sort of statement.

[Dark Soldier]

Contratiemo, aka The Invisible Guest.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4857264/

Spanish Agatha Christie style mystery. Fucking loved every second of this, a proper whodunnit, twist, plausible. One of the best I've seen this year.

[Spammer]

What's the phrase you use to refer to those times in films when it gets a bit unrealistic but you go with it anyway? Where you stay within the reality of it?

I can't think of it and its pissing me off.

Maintain your....
Withdraw your...

I can't remember.

[Boydy]

Suspend your disbelief.

[Spammer]

Suspend your disbelief.

Boydy

[Henry]

Cardboard Gangsters is fucking excellent. Just escalates and escalates.

Might be a bit hard to find unfortunately.

[Foe]

Carol was total shit.

Also, turned off hook half way through. Think I missed the boat with that one.

[Lewis]

Michael Bay has surpassed himself with this latest Transformers.

[Foe]

Still Alice was absolutely great. Difficult to watch if you've got a personal connection to Alzheimer's or dementia though.

[Ian]

Catching up on some shit I've had sitting about on my Sky box. The Guard is good and Gleason is bloody excellent.

Paddington was alright. I seem to recall it being very popular when it came out but even bearing in mind I'm not exactly the target audience I just thought it was a bit... meh.

[Yevrah]

I thought the same on Paddington. Not the target audience either obviously, but when fully grown adults are wetting themselves over it you'd expect there to be something there. There wasn't.

[Ian]

I thought I'd at least get that comfortable, "good family film is happening" feeling throughout but the best I can say for most of it is that I wasn't quite bored.

[Dark Soldier]

Transformers: Something or the Other

Absolute fucking brilliance. It is shit, its Transformers, all you sad, sad hater fucks will still dislike it. But its on you, live your lives like that. Story is class, makes zero sense. CGI IN EVERY SCENE pretty much. Marky Mark on top form, some new bad ass robots. Top notch humour. New woman called Stockton Wembley or something had a proper dominatrix look going on when she was first introduced. Sexy as all hell.

Proper cliche emotional moments which suits this film fine, Hopkins dialling it in, fucking robot dinosaur going off big time.

Second on my FOTY list so far.

[Lewis]

Yes lad.

[Cord]

Baby Driver is a good film. The right sort of style over substance.

[John]

Wonder Woman is not as good as advertised. The writing in particular, is genuinely shite.

What about the writing did you think was that bad? Obviously you have to grade on a curve, but for a comic book movie I thought it was quite well written. Dawn from The Office being twenty five stone now took me by complete surprise, so it even had less predictability than the average comic book movie.

[Reg]

Say whaaat? I'd have never have guessed that was her.

[Henry]

What about the writing did you think was that bad?

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Well, let's start with the villain. It's Dr. Poison (who was actually fairly interesting) until it's not. Then it's Ludendorff, until it's not. And then just because they need a boss fight, it arbitrarily becomes Sir Patrick for about ten minutes at the end. And said boss fight resolves itself like something out of Doom 3.

I mean, it's not a terrible movie, and this kind of thing is an issue with a lot of superhero stories, but the hype that it's getting left me disappointed.

[John]

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Well, let's start with the villain. It's Dr. Poison (who was actually fairly interesting) until it's not. Then it's Ludendorff, until it's not. And then just because they need a boss fight, it arbitrarily becomes Sir Patrick for about ten minutes at the end. And said boss fight resolves itself like something out of Doom 3.

I mean, it's not a terrible movie, and this kind of thing is an issue with a lot of superhero stories, but the hype that it's getting left me disappointed.

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The villain situation is a bit messy, but again, it's not as bad as that. It's Poison and Ludendorff together for most of the film, until it's Ares, who the whole film has been conditioning you to expect at some point, and who was obviously going to be played by David Thewlis the moment he appeared on screen. I think it would have been a more interesting film if they'd done without a superpowered enemy completely, or took the Captain America comparisons on the chin and had Ares be Himmel or something, but I don't think the way they went was 'genuinely shite'.

Now that we've started there, what else was that bad?

Tunnel, a Korean film about a tunnel collapse, is a strange beast. It seems to be trying to make about five hundred points at once, and has a few slapstick interludes which have come from a completely different film and brought their jaunty piano soundtrack with them, but when it throws that stuff off and just goes straight drama it's incredibly effective.

[Mazuuurk]

Kingsman: Secret Service was fucking ace. Best action I've seen in a long time. I heard before it's a bit surprisingly violent etc, but was still a bit surprised still.

[SvN]

Great, isn't it? I hope they don't fuck it up with the sequel. I'm already a tad nervous due to them bringing back Colin Firth.

[Mazuuurk]

They are? How the fuck is that going to work

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Nah, I had plate armour operated in my forehead mate! No sorry I meant a force field coming out of my glasses!

In fairness, he was badass, so.