Which movies have you watched? 13 - In a world where...

[AmazonQueen]

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

Originally, I watched this for its director, Stephen Frears. Today your eye might be drawn to the cast more: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou, and Benedict Wong, most notably. I think I had seen Amelie, and was intrigued by the idea of seeing the same actress in a thriller, but this was probably the first time I'd seen Ejiofor. Anyway, it isn't quite as good as I remembered it being, but it's still worth a watch. It seems strangely out of time, particularly the score, like it's a late-'80s or early-'90s movie. While I was watching it, I was thinking it'd make an interesting double-feature with Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday, which came out 14 years earlier. Even the trailer is like a time capsule from a long-gone era.

Its a great movie, maybe I'm out of time too (I've often suspected/hoped it).

 

[Cutlass]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. So far so bad.

 

[rah]

It's available on cable this month, I was considering it. Thx for the warning.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Its a great movie, maybe I'm out of time too (I've often suspected/hoped it).

Well, then you should give Stormy Monday a try, if you haven't already. Another film I just thought of that could be in a mini-film festival with those two: Mona Lisa (1986) with Bob Hoskins, dir. Neil Jordan.

I also recommend Frears' other films, although I don't think he's done any other thrillers. I really liked High Fidelity, but I'm right in the middle of that movie's crosshairs (almost embarrassingly so ). I still haven't seen Philomena, but you can't go wrong with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. The Van and The Snapper are based on Roddy Doyle novels, who also wrote The Commitments. I've never read any of Doyle's books, but the movies are all good.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Captain Marvel (2019)

It was alright. A 3rd-shelf Marvel movie, on par with Doctor Strange and Iron Man 2. I haven't seen Brie Larsen in much, but her performance here was maybe a little too understated. Two different reviews I've heard said that the movie was better on a second viewing, but I don't have the time or the money. I liked the Skrulls. I liked the zinger to Marvel canon. I liked Ben Mendelsohn and Jude Law. I liked the one-liners and the '90s stuff. I liked Samuel L. Jackson and the "de-aging" they did on him. The action scenes weren't as thrilling as I'd hoped, but I'm hard to please with CGI-heavy action scenes, I'm more into martial arts and stuntwork.

In case you're wondering, it's not required viewing in advance of Avengers: Endgame next month. The story here has no bearing on that movie. All you need to know you've already learned from the mid-credits stinger of the last Avengers movie, and from the Endgame trailers: Carol Danvers' wallet is the one that says "Bad Mother[lover]" on it; Nick Fury kept her on speed-dial in case everything went to Hell; and Thanos is gonna lose some teeth. (I liked Kevin Smith's tweet, iirc: "Thanos, you're [screwed]! I just saw Carol Danvers flying through space like she was on a '70s album cover!" )

Recommended only if your expectations are moderate. It's a fine "popcorn flick."

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think I've still got about 17 other Marvel films to get through first. There's only so many CGI destruction fests you can get through before you need a break.

Just saw Bullet to Busan, which apparently isn't actually called that in any language according to imdb, even though I'm sure the version I saw was. If you like zombie films I'd say this is probably a really good one. Unfortunately I don't and didn't realise it was a zombie film at the time I decided to watch it. Oh well.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There's only so many CGI destruction fests you can through before you need a break.

I have apparently not yet reached this number, whatever it is.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think my limit is around 1.5.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Clearly I have a much higher tolerance for CGI destruction.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I've found myself unable to choose a movie lately. With so many options in my streaming queues, I spend an hour browsing and never end up actually watching anything, and quit in frustration, or because I've run out of time. So this weekend, I put everything from all of my watchlists on all of my streaming services into a single doc, and then used random.org to choose one for me. First up...

Too Late (2015)

John Hawkes stars as a Los Angeles P.I. doing something or other, but really, this film's raison d'etre is in its filming and editing. It's like a student film made by somebody with the connections to get Robert Forster, Sydney Tamiia Poitier (she's a lot taller than I thought - 5'11"), Joanna Cassidy, and Dichen Lachman to spend an afternoon helping him out. The film is composed of four, 20-minute takes, and the story is told out of order. I'm not sure if that's a spoiler or not. I kind of enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on in terms of the story's chronology. Knowing in advance that it's out of order might make it less interesting, but oh well. The plot itself is deliberately simple; if you reordered the scenes to play in order, you'd wonder why they'd bothered. There was a movie several years ago that split the screen into quarters, and each quarter was a continuous take that played continuously. The story unfolded by drawing your attention to one of the four scenes at a time - by way of dialing the sound up and down, mainly - even as the other three kept playing. I forget what it was called now. That movie was an experiment in film-making more than a real movie, and its story was very simple, like a short play. Too Late is a little bit like that. There was also a thing at the beginning where the director films a scene from two angles and then splits the screen and puts both shots in front of you simultaneously. I thought that was sort of neat. I wished he'd kept it up longer, but maybe that's the sort of thing that's better in small doses.

So, uh, anyway. If you're into the techniques of filmmaking, and into indie movies, this might be worth a watch. If you like John Hawkes, a contender for most underrated actor of his generation, this might be worth a watch. Turns out Hawkes can play the guitar a little, too. I also liked hearing Dichen Lachman use her native accent.

 

[abradley]

Morgan 2016 interesting, makes me think of Nazi experiments on humans.

 

[Kyriakos]

The daemon of Laplace.
Decent italian 2017 film.

 

[Kyriakos]

Soorloos (The vanished) (1988)

Well, that was a really sad film. Generally good, though. Kubrick once termed this the most terrifying film he ever saw (cause he never saw anything by Theo Angelopoulos; those are way more sad and i could never watch any to the end).

 

[Synobun]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Given the reception this movie had, I was expecting more. It was a perfectly alright superhero movie but nothing particularly amazing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

BlacKkKlansman

I enjoyed it but I just don't understand why Adam Driver's didn't take over the phone calls once they had established contact. It just seemed like they did the infiltration on hard mode.

I was surprisingly moved by the final scenes where they showed some of the recent fascist marches. I've seen the footage many times since they happened but it still shocked me that all that is going down in 2019.

 

[Kyriakos]

The beast within (that 80s film)

Well, that made no sense at all. I mean

Spoiler :

just because you ate a human corpse it doesn't mean you will turn into a human cicada. Let alone the re-incarnation thing.

 

[tjs282]

The boyz' last 3 choices for family movies were (last week) Planet 51, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and (yesterday) Independence Day.

The first was OK, but a little odd: it harks back to the 1950s (pulp sci-fi, alien-invasion movies, rock'n'roll, Googie architecture, suburban sitcoms), so post-millennial kidlings aren't necessarily going to get those jokes, or recognize the visual references (and possibly neither will their parents, nor even their younger grandparents). The 'aliens' apparently love all this 50s-era Earth-kitsch, but though they appear to have antigravity (which they use for hovercars -- with fins, naturally -- but not aircraft!), they obviously haven't mastered astronomy, and are still woefully ignorant about outer space (the teenage lead character's planetarium-job has him telling his audience that the Universe contains 'thousands' of stars).

TASM2 was just as bad as the last time I saw it (on a hotel-room TV, in Thailand).

As for ID, I don't think I saw it since it first came out, but as BDAMs go, it's actually held up pretty well (apart from being a total cliché from beginning to end -- which goes with the territory, obviously). Is the sequel worth looking out for?

 

[Synobun]

As for ID, I don't think I saw it since it first came out, but as BDAMs go, it's actually held up pretty well (apart from being a total cliché from beginning to end -- which goes with the territory, obviously). Is the sequel worth looking out for?

It's worth a watch, you won't regret it.

Spoiler :

Nobody tell him!

 

[tjs282]

It's worth a watch, you won't regret it.

Liar

That bad, huh?

(But didn't you say you liked Roland Emmerich, a page or two back...?)

 

[Synobun]

The sequel is heinous. It'll take years off your lifespan.