The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[QualityChimp]

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[Atticus]

Never heard of Deep Rising but that gallery of pics has me sold

[QualityChimp]

It's like they had a meeting and said, what films do people like?
"Under Siege! The Poseidon Adventure! Aliens! Jurassic Park! Speed 2: Cruise Control!"

[charlesr]

Lake Placid: Legacy. On Prime. £3.50
Kept me guessing till the end who is going to die in what order. Can't want for more than entertainment than that

[Neon Ignition]

Long standing soft spot for Deep Rising



The Woman King
Very much a film that succeeds on the strengths of the directing and the performances of the women in the lead roles. It's a very well made film and is an interesting watch though an over reliance in convenience and coincidence robs one of the two central storylines of much of its impact.


Underwater
Expected to watch a b grade time filler and turned out it was like a small scale lost Alien movie. Really surprised us simply through being so much more better made than we expected and it recreates a lot of that early Alien/Aliens vibe without giving in to too much excess. Decent stuff.

[Dogg Thang]

I really liked Underwater. It didn’t reach too high and worked well at exactly what it was trying to be.

Last night I finally watched The Next Karate Kid. It’s not just that it’s a bad movie. It’s a boring movie. It’s really dull. There is next to no karate in it for one thing. And so little happens. A bird gets stolen - that’s the big event of the movie. I have already forgotten half the movie.

[wakka]

Deep Rising is new to me too but looks like a must watch.

[prinnysquad]

I remember it coming out. Does it star Treat Williams and Jean Grey?

[Baseley09]

Yeah it's plenty of fun.

[Baseley09]

Actually been watching a few, slacking of late.

Orphan: First Kill. Fair horror-ish prequel with minimal scares but a fun turn and decent performances surrounding old money stereotypes. When Julia Styles appeared I feared the worst buy mainly enjoyable 3/5

Moonage Daydream. Psychedelic David Bowie chronology, possibly one for the mega fans and absolute bonus points for Let's Dance criticism. Interesting format, sensational footage 5/5.

[fallenangle]

Watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi yesterday on C4.

Back to the Jedi philosophy **** that was one reason that put me off the whole franchise right from the start.

It's not an awful film but more derivative than even the previous one. There's a distinct smack of Battlestar Galactica at times with a senior baddy who looks and behaves like Skeletor from He-Man. All he needed was a high pitched cackling laugh and he'd be there.

One of the main plot devices: the connection between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) Leia/Han Solo's 'gone to the dark side' son just doesn't work at all. There's zero chemistry.

The whole film just feels second division. Long before the end I was clock watching thinking whether I could be bothered to continue. But I did.

Only the last Star Wars film to go now: "The Rise Of Skywalker" and that is due to be shown on C4 next week Saturday.

[Neon Ignition]

Lights Out
This was broadly as I recalled it but at the same time I remembered it going more sc-fi than it does. The attempt to explain what's happening actually robs the film of its impact. There's also the issue that it can't quite settle on what it wants its set up to be, in theory it's relatively grounded but the killer goes beyond the set up at times. With a tighter focus this could have been quite an effective jump scare film.

Ouija: Origins of Evil
The second one as it's easily the better of the two and doesn't require the original for viewing. Very much a product of the maker of Haunting of Hill House, this could push the horror further but the imagery of the actual horror moments is effective. A solid little film.

[prinnysquad]

Die Hard with a Vengeance

I remember these days. The 90s action film. More sophisticated than a lot of 80s output, with bigger explosions and set pieces. Speed, The Rock, Con Air - all classics in the field, with an increasingly frenetic pace and wild shifts in focus.
Take Speed. A tale of three parts. The lift, the bus, the subway. Then The Rock. The big opening San Francisco chase and the island stuff. Con Air was more single-minded, but was ludicrous in terms of caricature characters and absurdly large detonations.

Then there’s this. Compared to Die Hards 1 and 2, with their single-location straightforward set-ups, it was very different to what had come before. The location-hopping and reveals are so twisting that, I have to admit, I couldn’t keep up with on first viewing. It was fun, but it was a mess. Bomb-hunting, racing through a city, subway explosions, then… a heist? Ok. Then an aqueduct? Yankees stadium? A ship? What the hell? Too many different ideas, all thrown at the screen, and not sticking, because there’s too many. I remember thinking back in 95 that the first half was slick and cohesive, but the Fort Knox sequence onward was a maze of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ snippets and jumps.

That still stands. There’s a lot of leaps. There’s a whole film worth of material crammed into the last 50 minutes. But, damn, it’s good. What a film. The work between Willis and Jackson is exceptional, with sharp and natural dialogue. The set pieces are great (even though they could have cut about half of them!) and the premise ambitious. The support cast is entertaining, too, which I’ve only really appreciated in subsequent viewings.

I really miss this type of film, with proper stunts and carnage. There’s something tangible about them that all the CGI can’t replace. Willis has had such a bad run of films (for various reasons, seemingly) and it’s important to remember how good he was in stuff like this. It just gets better on every watch, and due to the packed nature of the script, I’m still discovering new things every rewatch.

[QualityChimp]

I rewatched DH3 a few years back and was surprised at how I didn't enjoy it all that much.
It's okay for all the reasons you say, but it just felt like 90 minutes of Willis and Jackson taking it in turns to SHOUT AT EACH OTHEEER.
It also wins the Alien3 award for undoing all the efforts of the previous films by saying John and Holly got divorced.
That man fought a tower and then an airport full of terrorists to protect his love!

I actually think Die Hard 2 is a better film, especially on rewatch.
I definitely think there's a hype element where DH1 is amazing, and a sequel could never compare, so DH2 gets unfairly compared, then DH3 comes along and it's compared to DH2 and seems comparatively amazing because people were unfairly underwhelmed by DH2. Just my sequel theory! See also GotG!

Saw (2004 via cinema).
I went to see Saw (Margery Daw) as part of the Secret Horror Club at the Mockingbird Cinema in Birmingham, this lovely little Indie cinema. Still a clever concept before the series turned into just a series of ways to inventively kill people, rather than having a story to tell. Are they still making them? Oh yeah - that Spiral came out recently. Bloody Hell, they made 9 of them!

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956 via NowTV).
I love the 70s version. LOVE IT. however, I'd never seen the original, so this October I thought I'd rectify that, especially after re-reading the Starburst "Top 100 Horror Films" issue.
So, it's a 50's film so there are a few old movie tropes like the close-up of the leading lady, but it's still definitely worth a watch!
It particularly ramps up a notch when he finds a blank clone and the paranoia really kicks in and you don't know who has been taken over.
Deffo need to pick up the Arrow disc of the 70's remake/sequel.

Eternals (2021 via D+).
Ooof, this was a slog. Had to watch it over about 4 nights with my son as it was so long.
My main issue is that everyone is an unlikeable dick in it.
They're supposed to be this team of supercool deities, but they're just really annoying, only helping out when it suits them.
Probably the worst Marvel film, so far, but that's still worth ticking off.
Hawkeye series is next on our Marvel catch-up, but they're still rattling them out!

Studio 666 (2022 via NowTV)
Foo Fighters, horror, metal soundtrack, John Carpenter title theme and metal cameos means this should be a hit, but I felt it fell a bit flat because it was neither really funny or really scary. I'm sure the Foos found it hilarious, but everyone else not a personal friend of Dave Grohl probably just shrugs.
Some interesting gore effects and a couple of cool deaths, but the best thing about it was probably the metal album DG wrote for it and the decent spooky score that emulates Carpenter's work by Roy Marorga.

[Yakumo]

Die Hard with a Vengeance

I remember these days. The 90s action film. More sophisticated than a lot of 80s output, with bigger explosions and set pieces. Speed, The Rock, Con Air - all classics in the field, with an increasingly frenetic pace and wild shifts in focus.
Take Speed. A tale of three parts. The lift, the bus, the subway. Then The Rock. The big opening San Francisco chase and the island stuff. Con Air was more single-minded, but was ludicrous in terms of caricature characters and absurdly large detonations.

Then there’s this. Compared to Die Hards 1 and 2, with their single-location straightforward set-ups, it was very different to what had come before. The location-hopping and reveals are so twisting that, I have to admit, I couldn’t keep up with on first viewing. It was fun, but it was a mess. Bomb-hunting, racing through a city, subway explosions, then… a heist? Ok. Then an aqueduct? Yankees stadium? A ship? What the hell? Too many different ideas, all thrown at the screen, and not sticking, because there’s too many. I remember thinking back in 95 that the first half was slick and cohesive, but the Fort Knox sequence onward was a maze of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ snippets and jumps.

That still stands. There’s a lot of leaps. There’s a whole film worth of material crammed into the last 50 minutes. But, damn, it’s good. What a film. The work between Willis and Jackson is exceptional, with sharp and natural dialogue. The set pieces are great (even though they could have cut about half of them!) and the premise ambitious. The support cast is entertaining, too, which I’ve only really appreciated in subsequent viewings.

I really miss this type of film, with proper stunts and carnage. There’s something tangible about them that all the CGI can’t replace. Willis has had such a bad run of films (for various reasons, seemingly) and it’s important to remember how good he was in stuff like this. It just gets better on every watch, and due to the packed nature of the script, I’m still discovering new things every rewatch.

Ah, you say no GC but I was very surprised to learn that there's quite a bit of CG in that movie. For example, the section near the being where Bruce is thrown on to the road as a car screeches to a stop in front of him. That is CG. The anniversary collection has a lot of these extras.
Still, I do agree with you. It's a fantastic movie! All 3 of the first Die Hards are fantastic.