The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, agreed.
I thought it was a top watch.
The Gentlemen was also really good, but different tone - more comical than Wrath.

Looks like Ritchie's next two films will be on Prime in April - Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and The Covenant.

[Neon Ignition]

Cocaine Bear
Very much like I'd seen in impressions online. It's a solid enough film but you can't help but wish it had leant a little more into the ridiculousness.

[CMcK]

Went to the Glasgow Film Festival to see A Man. It’s a Japanese film which isn’t quite what it seems as it goes from drama to thriller and mixes things up. It’s very polite if that makes sense but I guess that’s a cultural thing. But that doesn’t lessen the impact. Great ending too. Highly recommended.
I was hoping to see Under the Skin with a live orchestra too but it clashes with another event. Damn. That would be amazing.

[QualityChimp]

I was hoping to see Under the Skin with a live orchestra too but it clashes with another event. Damn. That would be amazing.

Oh man, hearing those unearthly screeches in the bits where she lures them into the water would freak me out.
One of the most disturbing soundtracks I've hear in ages.

Gave Elden Ring a break this weekend and hammered a few films.

127 Hours (2010 via Prime) is another Boyle film that I'd always missed. I guess I wasn't sure about how you'd stretch it out to a full film, but should have trusted Boyle as it was really good. It's that trippy style similar to The Beach where the character is hallucinating and it's all a bit trippy and hyperactively edited. James Franco is brilliant as Aron who is exciteable but likeable enough to happily spend a film stuck down a crevasse with. Ultimately, it's a simple tale, but well told.

The Illusionist (2006 Prime). It's always going to get compared to The Prestige as a period piece about a stage magician, but it tells a very different story and if you can go along with the CGI used for the tricks, you'll enjoy the story that surrounds it, a murder mystery. A great cast with Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan and the stunning Jessica Biel.
I might have to add her to my Celebrity Cheat List, the lucky thing.

Bullet Train (2022 via NowTV). Yeah, I'm always going to check out the work of Director, David Leitch after co-directing John Wick and directing Atomic Blonde. This was also a lot of fun. I'm enjoying this modern action genre that's a bit neon and a bit sassy like Kate, Gunpowder Milkshake, Guns Akimbo and Boss Level.
Brad Pitt is his usual likeable self in a fun action drama where a bunch of assassins all end up on the same bullet train out of Tokyo. Coincidence? Of course not.
Perfectly enjoyable popcorn flick worth your time if you want some stylish action and laughs.

Jung_E (2023 via Netflix). I've been hankering for some visually stunning sci-fi and this really delivered. It looks gorgeous and almost any frame could be a sci-fi desktop image. It's a tale of a successful military veteran put into a coma during her final mission and the brain pattern being reused to go into battle droids in an endless war between satellite stations after Earth is abandoned from pollution.
There are crossovers with similar tales, most notably "I, Robot" and "Ghost in the Shell", but definitely treads its own path.
It made me think about our recent discussion on AI and what gives emotional content and what is just a facsimile of it.
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the director of "Train to Busan", "Peninsula" and "Psychokenisis".


Rocky (1976 via Prime). Prime have added all of the Rocky films including the first two Creed films as the third film hits the cinemas.
I realised I've never actually seen the original!
It's a bit different to what I thought and Rocky is an unusual character, not entirely likeable and a bit ADHD as he mooches around the poor area of Philadelphia. However, by the time his fight with Apollo Creed comes around, it's suitably tense to see how the "bum" can beat the champ.
Personally, although emotional as Rocky cries out for Adrienne, their relationship seems to have got there really quickly.

->Open Spoiler<-

Likewise, although we get a training montage, Rocky goes from a pretty poor boxer to someone able to last the whole match with Apollo, which nobody has done before.
Definitely worth a watch, though and another film I could scratch off my "100 Movies Bucket List" poster.

Another one to scratch off was The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975 via Disney+).
It's erm... not for me.
There's no denying Tim Curry is amazing in this and there are some good songs, but it's a bit nuts and there are a few too many men in stockings.
After their car breaks down, Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
Then all hopes of a coherent plot go out the window.
They do the Time Warp, then get stripped to their underwear, then go to Frankie's lab where he makes a man (Rocky Horror), but he's gorgeous not like Frankenstein's monster, then Meatloaf bursts out of a deep freeze on a motorbike and sings a song, which Rocky enjoys, so Frankie murders Meatloaf and then they all go off and Frankie seduces both Janet and Brad. And so on.
I mean I was really baffled anyway, but even more so trying to work out if this is Rocky canon or not.

->Open Spoiler<-

I totally get that not every film is for everyone and I'm pleased TRHPS kept loads of indie cinemas afloat in the late 70s, but it's not my bag, baby.

[wakka]

Stellar work and great impressions.

I only watched one film at the weekend, X. I'll add some impressions later. It's a goodie, though.

[Atticus]

127 Hours is brilliant at turning a relatively simple something, that you already know about, into a great film. I love the way it's filmed and Franco is spot on. I've seen it a couple of times and the bits that happen in his head always stay with me … even the basic stuff like fantasising about an ice cold drink in the style of a commercial.

Haven't seen Rocky for ages and didn't know it was on Prime. Brilliant film. Definitely going to watch again soon.

... and I'll definitely look out for Jung_E. Sounds really interesting but 'director of Train to Busan' would have twisted my arm anyway.

[Atticus]

I only watched one film at the weekend, X.

I'm still only half way through it. I keep having to turn it off when the fam gets near ... in case they think I'm watching Frankie Vaughan

[QualityChimp]

Stellar work and great impressions.

I only watched one film at the weekend, X. I'll add some impressions later. It's a goodie, though.

Similar to Rocky and Rocky Horror seemingly unrelated, I struggled to work out how X and its sequels are remotely related?

->Open Spoiler<-

[Neon Ignition]

The Menu
Very much a film that shouldn't work but to its credit it actually does and is compelling to the end.

[CMcK]

Another one to scratch off was The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975 via Disney+).
It's erm... not for me.
There's no denying Tim Curry is amazing in this and there are some good songs, but it's a bit nuts and there are a few too many men in stockings.
After their car breaks down, Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
Then all hopes of a coherent plot go out the window.
They do the Time Warp, then get stripped to their underwear, then go to Frankie's lab where he makes a man (Rocky Horror), but he's gorgeous not like Frankenstein's monster, then Meatloaf bursts out of a deep freeze on a motorbike and sings a song, which Rocky enjoys, so Frankie murders Meatloaf and then they all go off and Frankie seduces both Janet and Brad. And so on.
I mean I was really baffled anyway, but even more so trying to work out if this is Rocky canon or not.


I totally get that not every film is for everyone and I'm pleased TRHPS kept loads of indie cinemas afloat in the late 70s, but it's not my bag, baby.

Rocky Horror is best experienced live in fancy dress with a few drinks. A great night out. I’ve done it three times. Although there’s no water pistols allowed these days.

[QualityChimp]

Rocky Horror is best experienced live in fancy dress with a few drinks. A great night out. I’ve done it three times. Although there’s no water pistols allowed these days.

Yeah, I chatted with my wife who said she'd seen it live and couldn't tell me the plot, but it was an amazing night out.

Question is, did you wear fishnet stockings...?

[wakka]

I watched X, which I went into with medium expectations. It exceeded them!

This 70s set slasher sees things going bump in the night for the stars and crew of a no-budget amateur porn film in rural Texas.

They've hired themselves a shack out in the middle of nowhere to film the roll in the hay, presided over by a spooky elderly couple who they haven't told what they're up to.

Structurally and narratively this sticks to genre tropes, but there's a heady cocktail of unsettling themes - exploitation, jealousy, narcissism, the horrible inevitability of ageing, and more - that enrich the experience considerably.

There are interesting characterisations throughout, too. A self-centred, Stetson-wearing stripclub owner and his much younger cocaine-snorting girlfriend, a Vietnam vet, a glamorous stripper, a dorky amateur filmmaker and his quiet, geeky girlfriend are pitted against an antagonist that's unusually three dimensional for this type of film. I'm not sure I've ever felt a scene could be simultaneously tense, touching, and revolting, but this film's got one (and you'll know it when you see it).

Plus, it's an incredibly cool looking film. Grindhouse filth.

Go watch it. Even if it means making your family think you're having a ham shank.

[teddymeow]

Just seen Cocaine Bear.
It was okay. Some laughs and gore along the way, but pretty silly.

What did you expect from a film who's title is "Cocaine Bear"?

[CMcK]

Yeah, I chatted with my wife who said she'd seen it live and couldn't tell me the plot, but it was an amazing night out.

Question is, did you wear fishnet stockings...?

Went as Riff Raff the first time then we all went as Translyvianas. I don't know how the ladies of the world manage high heels...!

[Neon Ignition]

I watched X, which I went into with medium expectations. It exceeded them!

Pearl is worth a watch too, it's fairly different and very intentionally stylistically and mostly just expands on the set up given it's a prequel but I imagine it also is there to set the expectation to anticipate something different for the trilogy closer MaXXXine when it releases.