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Post by amyja89 on Mar 2, 2024 15:54:57 GMT
Dune: Part Two
Not really my cup of tea but visually arresting, see it in the cinema if you are going to see it at all. Sci-fi is never going to be my favourite, but there is definitely something epic about this that I think is going to stand that test of time. Christopher Walken woefully miscast, and it's quite genuinely comical how barely visible Charlotte Rampling is in her reverend mother black veiled costume!
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Post by Jon on Mar 3, 2024 1:24:43 GMT
Dune Part Two is great, my favourite performance was Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha.
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Post by Jon on Mar 9, 2024 1:18:40 GMT
Wicked Little Letters is a decent film with great performances from all involved.
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853 posts
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Post by bordeaux on Mar 9, 2024 12:36:07 GMT
I saw Red Island last weekend, French film about a boy growing up on a military base in Madagascar in the early 70s. I enjoyed it but I felt it was a classic case of where a five-star review (Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian) gives you such high expectations that mere goodness or even excellence feels slightly disappointing. Off to see Perfect Days tonight - it's been decades since I saw anything by Wim Wenders.
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3,478 posts
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Post by showgirl on Mar 9, 2024 15:15:46 GMT
I saw Red Island and quite enjoyed it - I certainly wasn't bored - but my expectations hadn't been that high in the first place. What was seen of Madagascar made it look less attractive than I'd imagined, though scenery wasn't, of course, the point.
One Love was another film I enjoyed recently and which was better than I'd expected. On the other hand, comments here had already led me not to hope for too much from Wicked Little Letters and it did indeed seem like a wasted opportunity. So much time and money invested in the period clothing and setting (though when did Littlehampton ever have any residential areas looking so Dickensian?), but all the main characters were more like cariacatures and made to behave in such sterotypcial ways. Also, there was little or no proper dialogue between them; instead they merely made remarks without seeming to engage with or to have real conversations. Waste of a good cast and as for what Anjana Vasan thought she was doing, I have no idea, but an earlier comment about her "wooden" performance" was on the nail.
Four Daughters was definitely a disappointment and nothing like as good as reviews had suggested; in fact, after about 70 minutes of repetitive dialogue and behaviour, I couldn't face any more and left.
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Post by aptheguy on Mar 9, 2024 17:12:35 GMT
Lisa Frankenstein. I loved it.
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Post by marob on Mar 11, 2024 18:54:58 GMT
Wicked Little Letters. Really enjoyed it, but felt like the director couldn’t decide whether it was a comedy of manners or a drama about women’s place in society.
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1,868 posts
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Post by Marwood on Mar 15, 2024 20:40:02 GMT
Saw Raising Arizona tonight for the first time since it came out: with the exception of The Big Lebowski I’m not keen on the Coen brothers comedies and didn’t think it was that great, a lot of slapstick and shouting but I wasn’t engaged by what’s happening: I had been pondering seeing Drive-Away Dolls tomorrow afternoon but I’m thinking it might just be more of this (it’s better than Burn After Reading though, I thought that was dreadful)
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Post by jalouis on Mar 20, 2024 9:07:36 GMT
Conan the Destroyer. The first movie having won me over, I enjoyed this thoroughly. Glad they recapitulated the Orgy Waltz, too.
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3,478 posts
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Post by showgirl on Mar 22, 2024 4:05:50 GMT
I enjoyed Drive-Away Dolls, which, whilst perhaps not a critical success, had some great dialogue and was generally ver entertaining; also relatively short compared to a lot of the current major releases. Far too much focus on sex scenes (I don't care which sexuality is involved; I just don't want to see this on screen), so a Curate's Egg but the good parts were certainly to my taste.
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Post by jaqs on Mar 24, 2024 7:03:13 GMT
Saw the new Ghostbusters on Friday and it was so much fun. I’d not managed to get through the previous one so was pleased this one was back on form.
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1,868 posts
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Post by Marwood on Mar 24, 2024 16:31:10 GMT
Saw Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire this afternoon and wasn’t impressed: it was good to see them in NYC but it just carries on for the best part of two hours and then ends without any excitement or real reason to exist (Paul Rudd is given next to nothing to do and apart from Dan Aykroyd, the other original ‘Busters were hardly in it): it opens with a produced by Ghost Corps credit but I don’t think there’s much life left in this franchise: 5 out of 10 from me
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Post by amyja89 on Mar 24, 2024 17:06:40 GMT
Yeah didn't enjoy Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire very much. Brief glimpses of fun, but it's a weird feeling coming out of a film like that and thinking "I'm not even sure what ghosts are supposed to be as this point?".
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Post by jek on Mar 24, 2024 21:52:52 GMT
Anyone looking for a good New York movie look no further than Robot Dreams - the Oscar nominated animation about a dog and his robot. It's set in 1980s New York which is lovingly rendered (there is even a glimpse of the Twin Towers). It's about loneliness and love and loss and while it's fine for children it has much wider appeal than that. You will - however - be left with an earworm of September by Earth Wind and Fire!
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Post by anita on Mar 25, 2024 10:50:43 GMT
Cats. I very rarely go to the cinema.
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Post by showgirl on Apr 11, 2024 2:56:16 GMT
I've seen loads of mainly good to great films lately but no-one else has mentioned them, so they probably weren't worth a thread in their own right and some have already disappeared after only a week i cinemas, either becauase they were also on Netflix or, presuambly, as they didn't prove very popular.
So, the football-related film, The Beautiful Game, with Bill Nighy and Michaeal Ward, was very entertaining if unsurprising in its lessons about community, teamwork and the importance of participation rather than winning.
The Persian Version wasn't at all what I expected and less worthwile, too; I wouldn't say I was bored but it would have been missable.
Evil Does Not Exist (ghastly title which would have led me to assume it was yet another horror film and therefore to be avoided) was also interesting and not quite what I expected, despite the fact that I'd read lots of reviews before deciding to risk it. I suppose in a way it was, if not a story about enironmental horror, then certainly a warning about it, though if anyone else has seen it and can explain the ending to me, I'd be grateful as I've no idea what was supposed to have happened. Maybe it was meant to be left ambiguous however.
The Trouble With Jessica was very entertaining if totally implausible.
The film which probably does deserve its own thread, and which for me is so far my joint best of the year with American Fiction - though completely different - is the appallingly-translated The Teachers' Lounge. (Why on earth not say "staff room" as that appears to be the meaning? Presumably that's the US version but why, when this a German film?) Anyway, I thought it was fantastic and utterly compelling throughout, though nerve-wracking to watch, which did catch me unawares. The way the story develops is both convincing yet unpredictable and disappointing as it was, I wouldn't even mark it down for the non-ending.
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Post by jek on Apr 11, 2024 13:23:37 GMT
showgirl How I wish I could explain the ending of Evil is Not Enough! There were seven of us in the screening we attended (and we were a party of three) and there was some discussion as we emerged as to what it meant. General consensus was that nobody had a clue but it was a beautiful ride to get there! My son has been playing the soundtrack pretty much non-stop since seeing the film. I haven't seen the director's earlier Drive My Car but I am planning to rectify that. I'm disappointed that the Teachers' Lounge isn't coming to my local Picturehouse and so I may not get to see it any time soon.
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Post by danb on Apr 13, 2024 14:49:05 GMT
Watched a few new-ish releases on a flight recently. I dozed through ‘Mean Girls’ as I’d seen it before and most of the good songs are near the beginning. Enjoyable tosh all the same. I then watched a predictable but fun rom com; ‘Anyone But You’ that was so typical I may have written it as I went along. Again, was perfectly undemanding.
The last one however, ‘No Hard Feelings’ with Jennifer Laurence & Broadways Andrew Barth Feldman was much better and had a bit of bite to it. Jen plays a 30something waitress offered a (much needed) car to sleep with an 18 year old introvert before he heads off to college. It is full of surprises, warmth and ick and was genuinely funny. You don’t get much of that these days.
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Post by amyja89 on Apr 13, 2024 15:21:38 GMT
Monkey Man - *** 1/2 For a debut directorial feature, this is HELLA bold from Dev Patel. Whilst some of the action is a little muddy and dizzying, there was enough down and dirty gnarly stuff to keep me gasping.
Civil War - **** This was a depressing but kind of exhilarating ride. If I'm being greedy I would have loved some more world building, but I understand why things were kept as ambiguous as they were.
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Post by Marwood on Apr 13, 2024 21:45:17 GMT
Finally got round to seeing Everyone Says I Love You (mainly because I was going to Paris this weekend): it’s all a bit erm, easy to see why the likes of Edward Norton and Julia Robert’s aren’t renowned for doing musicals (Woody Allen just mumbles and hopes he’s got away with it): when Tim Roth and Paulie from the Sopranos rocked up, that was it for me: I’ll be generous and say five out of ten for the shots of Paris and Venice
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Post by crowblack on Apr 14, 2024 22:10:58 GMT
'Men', starring Jessie Buckley and several Rory Kinnears is on All4 for a month and I've just watched it - fantastic performances and setting, nods, perhaps, to eerie classics like The Signalman and Penda's Fen though I think it loses the plot with a lot of gratuitous and thematically confused Cronenbergian body horror in the last half hour
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Post by amyja89 on Apr 15, 2024 16:10:51 GMT
Back To Black - ** 1/2
Is this going to be the way of things now with modern biopics? That we know so much and have so much real life content to compare to that everything just feels incredibly cringe?
Some of this is genuinely toe curling, and it appears that neither writer nor director had much interest in doing more than ticking off the Wikipedia.
There are brief allusions and hints to Winehouse at her very best, but they are far too infrequent. The parts that actually work best are the ones that the public have no possibility of having been privy to (scenes with her grandmother etc.). Everything that we have a direct reference for (public performances, photographer clashes, interviews etc.) just feels like a cheap TV production.
Pretty much the last thing the audience hears Amy say in this is telling her dad how much she loves him, so you know who's hand has been heaviest in allowing this particular version to hit the big screen.
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Post by justfran on Apr 15, 2024 20:52:46 GMT
I’ve just watched The Greatest Hits on Disney+ wouldn’t really recommend it. It shares ideas with quite a few (better) films such as About Time and High Fidelity. Overall it just seemed a bit empty- lacking feeling and characters to care about. 2⭐️
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Post by kathryn on Apr 16, 2024 21:36:01 GMT
Watched Damsel last night on Netflix.
2.5*
It’s fine as a switch-your-brain-off action-fantasy. It falls apart the minute you think about the premise or the world-building.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 16, 2024 21:42:42 GMT
Back To Black - ** 1/2 Is this going to be the way of things now with modern biopics? That we know so much and have so much real life content to compare to that everything just feels incredibly cringe? We should be getting the Robbie Williams biopic later this year, and reportedly it is an exercise in original filmmaking. So maybe if that is a success…
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Post by danb on Apr 17, 2024 8:04:55 GMT
I’ve just watched The Greatest Hits on Disney+ wouldn’t really recommend it. It shares ideas with quite a few (better) films such as About Time and High Fidelity. Overall it just seemed a bit empty- lacking feeling and characters to care about. 2⭐️ Can we just not mention ‘About Time’…😢😢😢😢
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Post by jek on Apr 17, 2024 19:48:29 GMT
Just saw 'Sometimes I think about dying' starring Daisy Ridley. It was a Picturehouse Preview (previously free, now £1). It was better than the two star Guardian review led me to expect. It feels like a filmed American short story. Nothing much happens but there are some profound moments and Ridley was excellent. The quality of the light in the film is also very pleasing.
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Post by showgirl on Apr 18, 2024 3:12:54 GMT
Really hoping to see this but times are completely useless atm; either during a theatre matinee or too late in the evening. Will keep checking but sounds like the sort of niche film which may not be around long.
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Post by Jon on Apr 19, 2024 19:57:01 GMT
Watched Back to Black and while I liked it, I think Mitch Winehouse and to an extent Blake Fielder-Civil were portrayed in a less negative light than compared to the 2015 documentary Amy which was very critical of Mitch.
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Post by solotheatregoer on Apr 23, 2024 21:26:26 GMT
Challengers - honestly one of the worst films I have seen in the last few years. Not even Josh O’Connor was able to save this tacky mess of a film. Not what I’d expect from Guadagnino.
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