Film Thread

[Giggles]

I'd get to the cinema for this one if you can.

I hate them with all I have but I’ve booked the cunt for tomorrow. Watched the original tonight. Without the songs it’s nothing.

[Shindig]

I was in the mood for Werner Herzog so watched Nomad on the iPlayer. Another one of those documentaries that makes me feel insignificant in a massive world.

[Don]

Watched Top Gun tonight. The after-credits easter egg scene where Jon Hamm peels his clothes off to reveal his zionist lizard skin was mad.

What a crock of shit it was, though. The entire dialogue is a disjointed collection of shit one-liners, the romance story arc is completely pointless and the action is transformers-esque nonsense in that you don't know what's what until it's ended. My faint memory of the original suggests it was purely driven by the music and the rivalry, neither of which are here. That Lady Gaga track at the end

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I'm impressed that Morbius managed to be as bad as the reviews were saying.

[Lofty]

Haven't watched anything new recently but in my quest to make sure I watch all the physical media I buy to ensure I don't just waste money hoarding (I am a massive hoarder) I rewatched An American Werewolf in London and Candyman last night.

The former is just a joyous romp through the horror genre, great effects, well written story and good performances. Young Rik Mayall and 'younger' Alan Ford aka Bricktop from Snatch (still looks about 50 here) always raise a smile. Landis' favourite film out of his work apparently and easy to see why. Also amsuing that Blue Moon wasn't the original choice for the opening song but it works so well. I vaguely remember seeing the sequel but I was a teenager and was just cruising sky movies for skin at the time.

Candyman, I waited so long to watch this first time as an adult due to the cult status it has but I never found it scary. In fact I'd say AAWIL is scarier despite being a horror comedy. It is a very interesting idea though, I can see why they made a modern version but I haven't seen it yet. The titular villain is great, and some nice imagery adds to the mythology. Also an unnecessarily long scene with the leading lady sat with her baps out in the bath is a bonus. Haven't seen the sequels, any good?

[Yevrah]

I'm impressed that Morbius managed to be as bad as the reviews were saying.

It did give rise to this though, which I quite like.

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[Bernanke]

The only scene I've seen from Morbius was this one and I was sure the music was dubbed in after, but apparently this is straight from the movie?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Yep, straight from the film.

[Yevrah]

What the fuck is that?

[Yevrah]

Silly me, it's him morbing, isn't it?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

He's not Morbius so can he really morb?

[Shindig]

Matt Smith is a career that shouldn't have happened.

[Gray Fox]

Maybe it’s Morbin’ time, all of the time?

[Yevrah]

I think it should be, particularly if Matt Smith is involved. The poor man's John Barrowman.

[Gray Fox]

The best part of this films release, was that it originally bombed, so it was pulled from Cinemas quite soon after. Then Sony saw all of the traffic it was getting as a meme and mistook it for popularity and re-released it. It pulled in less than £100k on the weekend of re-release

[Dave.]

Live and Let Die on ITV tonight. One of my favourite Bond films and my favourite one to star Roger Moore.

[Giggles]

Wasn’t worth the hell that is the cinema but Maverick was

[Dave.]

The Man With The Golden Gun is on ITV today at 6pm. Not one of the best Bond films but some beautiful scenery, an interesting opening sequence and a top draw main villain. Interestingly enough, this is the next Bond film I will be reviewing so expect a review in more detail soon.

[Giggles]

RTÉ don’t have one today for some reason. Crocodile Dundee is on after the football

[Dave.]

I found The Damned United on BBC Scotland last night after I watched LALD and I don't think it was on the normal BBC channels. It was a nice surprise and a great film.

[Pepe]

Wasn’t worth the hell that is the cinema but Maverick was

I thought for a second that someone had remade the Mel Gibson film (what a film that was), but I see that you are talking about Top Gun. Meh.

[Lewis]

Maverick: the Mel Gibson Story.

[Shindig]

"I'm going to fly this plane over Israel and count them. Then we'll see who's right."

[Manc]

Has anyone seen X?

[Alex]

No Time to Die

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Better than Spectre but far below the bar set by the previous Craig films. The plot was a bit daft. Rami Malek wasn't great, I don't think. It just felt like the people who do the casting had just thought "he's a weird looking lad, we need him as a Bond villain" and then not put much thought in it past that. Blofeld and his bionic eye was silly. Far too long as well. But, there were some decent action sequences and I'll give it credit for the ending. Killing Bond off. Bold. It was quite movingly done too. 6/10

Here endeth the Bond-a-thon. Apologies for hijacking the thread for the last few weeks.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hijack it again with a new series.

Godzilla has about a million films, do that.

[Baz]

Has anyone seen Dashcam?

[Dan]

I’m watching Warrior now as I seem to remember it being a well regarded movie, but I think it might actually be utter garbage.

[phonics]

Did you confuse it with The Warriors?

[Dan]

In that The Warriors is meant to be good but Warrior isn’t? Maybe, Otherwise no.

[Ian]

I really liked Warrior whenever I watched it last despite it having another weird Tom Hardy accent.

[Dan]

It felt like the writing was done by WWE creative, which basically torpedoed the whole thing for me.

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- Why would an event marketing itself as the Super Bowl of MMA invite two random assholes from Pittsburgh, one of which was a below average fighter like a decade ago & is now a teacher, and the other hasn’t ever fought professionally or even as an amateur & nobody even knows if he has any training beyond being an elite high school wrestler (which they don’t even know, and he never uses at any point).

- All their fights are equally implausible. Sure, maybe you catch one guy with an OHKO but an amateur is not going to wipe out three of the best pros in the world is a total of about thirty seconds, and Brendan should’ve had all his fights stopped way earlier - the ref basically let him get choked out for 20 full seconds in the first fight alone.

[Ian]

I mean it's just cherry picking bits from other stupid fighting / martial arts type films. Just because it's presented realistically doesn't mean it needs to be.

- Rocky esque chump (s) beasting pros? Check.
- Nonsensical made up tournament like in Bloodsport? Check.
- Pro wrestler in there for no good reason (also Rocky)? Check.

I think it's a silly film that is good fun if you don't insist on scrutinising it and asking HOW WOULD THE UNTRAINED UFC MAN DO ALL THE FIGHTING SO GOOD EH?

[Dave.]

No Time to Die

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Better than Spectre but far below the bar set by the previous Craig films. The plot was a bit daft. Rami Malek wasn't great, I don't think. It just felt like the people who do the casting had just thought "he's a weird looking lad, we need him as a Bond villain" and then not put much thought in it past that. Blofeld and his bionic eye was silly. Far too long as well. But, there were some decent action sequences and I'll give it credit for the ending. Killing Bond off. Bold. It was quite movingly done too. 6/10

Here endeth the Bond-a-thon. Apologies for hijacking the thread for the last few weeks.

You hijacking the thread has been a treat. It's always interesting to hear people's thoughts on the Bond films, especially when they differ to mine. This, once again, proves my two Bond mantras - "When it comes to Bond, there is no wrong answer" and "There is something for everyone in the Bond franchise."

Reviews (or random thoughts or ramblings of a mad man if you prefer ) of two further Bond films to come from me. The Man With The Golden Gun is next, I wonder if you can guess the next one?

[Dave.]

The Man With The Golden Gun

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After a very promising opening that sets up Scaramanga and Nick Nack as villains and a great scene to follow between Bond and M further creating a sense of danger, this film seems to be all over the place. The tone is off for this one, on the one hand it wants to be a serious Bond film and on the other, it wants to be a slapstick action comedy.

To give an example of this, we go from serious action Moore (slapping Maud Adams' character Anders about in order to get information) to embarrassing sequences at a martial arts school to a reasonably tense boat chase (which was completely spoiled by a needless cameo appearance by J W Pepper (returning from the previous film)). We also have an amazing stunt with a car in mid-air accompanied by a screeching noise (who on earth sanctioned this?)

Good points include Maud Adams who plays a much more interesting character here than she does in Octopussy . She completely outshines Britt Ekland's Mary Goodnight. Christopher Lee is absolutely excellent as Scaramanga and is one of the best villains in the series. He manages to be genuinely threatening throughout the film. Speaking of excellence takes me to Bernard Lee's M and this is definitely one of his better outings.

I also enjoyed the character of Nick Nack but not how he was dealt with at the end.

6/10

[Dave.]

Diamonds Are Forever

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Let me start with a rant here. This should have been a revenge film with Bond trying to avenge the death of his wife at the hands of Blofeld. Instead, we get an action comedy. Completely the wrong tone for this one. Also, we have one of the most miscast villains in the series with Charles Gray playing Blofeld.

However, the rather bizarre opening scene plays out and we are treated to the best theme song in the entire series by Shirley Bassey. So we decide to give this film a chance...

I would like to comment on Connery's performance which has widely differing views among the Bond fan base. For me, he does a decent job with the material he's got but his performance is nowhere near the level of the first four films.

Tiffany Case had the potential to be an excellent Bond girl and was doing fine until half way through, then seemed to have a sudden change of character and becomes VERY annoying after that.

With the main villain and Bond girl not shining, the best performances come from Wint and Kidd. The henchmen are perfect for this film and manage to be both menacing and funny at the same time. The support cast are quite decent (especially the stereotypical Vegas elements) and some of the action sequences are very good. The fight between Bond and (the real) Peter Franks in the lift is my personal favourite and quite brutal.

I feel I'm quite generous in ranking this film this high but the theme song is worthy of a few marks on it's own.

6/10

[Raoul Duke]

With all this Bond chat I watched Casino Royale yesterday. Think I'll do a run through of the Craig ones at least. My two cents:

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Firstly, some very fucking weird scenes in this one: Bond sucking her fingers in the shower, then getting his balls mashed by Le Chiffre. Makes me think the director was probably a deviant. Also, the theme tune was so generic-Bond-theme-by-numbers.

It wasn't a bad film overall - the casino stuff is alright and the opening chase plus the bit with the airport felt like classic 007 shenanigans. The set piece at the end with the building sinking was cool as well. But it overall felt like a bunch of random things happening around a central plot that wasn't sure of itself

[Dan]

I mean it's just cherry picking bits from other stupid fighting / martial arts type films. Just because it's presented realistically doesn't mean it needs to be.

- Rocky esque chump (s) beasting pros? Check.
- Nonsensical made up tournament like in Bloodsport? Check.
- Pro wrestler in there for no good reason (also Rocky)? Check.

I think it's a silly film that is good fun if you don't insist on scrutinising it and asking HOW WOULD THE UNTRAINED UFC MAN DO ALL THE FIGHTING SO GOOD EH?

Yeah, I think I was just expecting it to be a gritty, realistic type movie, so it actually not being that at all really threw me off.

[Alex]

The Man With The Golden Gun

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After a very promising opening that sets up Scaramanga and Nick Nack as villains and a great scene to follow between Bond and M further creating a sense of danger, this film seems to be all over the place. The tone is off for this one, on the one hand it wants to be a serious Bond film and on the other, it wants to be a slapstick action comedy.

To give an example of this, we go from serious action Moore (slapping Maud Adams' character Anders about in order to get information) to embarrassing sequences at a martial arts school to a reasonably tense boat chase (which was completely spoiled by a needless cameo appearance by J W Pepper (returning from the previous film)). We also have an amazing stunt with a car in mid-air accompanied by a screeching noise (who on earth sanctioned this?)

Good points include Maud Adams who plays a much more interesting character here than she does in Octopussy . She completely outshines Britt Ekland's Mary Goodnight. Christopher Lee is absolutely excellent as Scaramanga and is one of the best villains in the series. He manages to be genuinely threatening throughout the film. Speaking of excellence takes me to Bernard Lee's M and this is definitely one of his better outings.

I also enjoyed the character of Nick Nack but not how he was dealt with at the end.

6/10

Totally passed me by until you pointed this out that the same women was in TMWTGG and Octopussy! I agree about Nick Nack too. Something about

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tying a midget to the mast of a ship and just leaving him there

was a bit mean. I mean I know he was a little shit, but still.

I'm also a bit confused by his (Nick Nack's) relationship with Scaramanga in that film.

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He seems to half be loyal to/serving him, half pretty keen on killing him.

Scaramanga is probably the Bond villain I'd most like to be mates with. Honestly he mostly seemed a chilled out and quite nice bloke.

[Giggles]

According to wiki she had a cameo in A View to a Kill too.

[Alex]

Maybe Sir Roger had something going on with her for real behind the scenes.

[Dave.]

Totally passed me by until you pointed this out that the same women was in TMWTGG and Octopussy! I agree about Nick Nack too. Something about

Toggle Spoiler

tying a midget to the mast of a ship and just leaving him there

was a bit mean. I mean I know he was a little shit, but still.

I'm also a bit confused by his (Nick Nack's) relationship with Scaramanga in that film.

Toggle Spoiler

He seems to half be loyal to/serving him, half pretty keen on killing him.

Scaramanga is probably the Bond villain I'd most like to be mates with. Honestly he mostly seemed a chilled out and quite nice bloke.

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I think Nick Nack's servitude towards Scaramanga comes from the fact that Scaramanga could kill him at any time. After all, we know what happened to Hai Fat and Anders. Keep him on side and hope his ego eventually gets the better of him in these duels he has.

[igor_balis]

Well I’m not really a fan of Brosnan. I know he’s massively rated as an actor by the industry but I don’t get the hype personally. I also love Sean Bean so I agree with you there.

[Ben]

[Kikó]

Unreal. Like an over the top Brian Blessed.

[Raoul Duke]

Watched Quantum Of Solace last night - another very weird Bond film, that I don't think I'd seen before.

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The baddies were very forgettable, from the nerdy guy and his strange BFF with the Lloyd Christmas haircut to the Colonel guy who was a walking cliche (with a side of rape thrown in). Just odd, 2D characters that didn't even seem to be that bad, just generically shitty corporate goons.

I did like the Bond/M dynamic and how she sees him as a loose cannon but trustworthy.

[Yevrah]

Taffin.

[Baz]

Look at Me: XXXTentacion

Completely stumbled upon this by chance while scrolling through my IPTV provider at midnight trying to find something to keep me awake for the next few hours while my baby slept on me, and I feel like I should preface this saying I’m no fan of X but basically knew most of the story already. I thought it didn’t shy away from a lot of the negativity and felt like an accurate portrayal of his life. I say I’m not a fan, but essentially I mean I don’t regularly listen to his music like @Waffdon but I have maaaaaad respect for the influence he made and how meteoric his rise was, and what impact it had on those who followed his journey. Quite phenomenal, and it was well told.

Call me an idiot but I’m a fan of 6ix9ine. In a way, Xxxtentacion is more interesting but he was legitimately a scumbag albeit with mental health problems, whereas I’ve never shaken the feeling that 6ix’s character is all an act (that eventually he couldn’t escape) to get rich and famous.

The stats regarding streaming plays for X’s music shown at the end of the doc are insane though: XXXTENTACION is the first hip-hop artist to have three solo songs with over 1 billion streams each on Spotify and his album ‘?’ is the most streamed album ever on the platform. Especially impressive considering I’m pretty sure they took all his songs down for a bit when the court case was brought to like by Pitchfork.

Made me SAD!

[Manc]

Has anyone seen X?

Arthouse horror meets retro porn. The soundtrack bangs as does the cinematography. Well worth a watch.

[Baz]

I watched Minions: The Rise Of Gru before. Same old, really; enjoyable enough for what it is.