The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[Brad]

Don’t look up was excellent I thought. I consider it a comedic social commentary and I thought it nailed it.

I watched that other guy Ritchie movie with Jason statham in and thought it was garbage.

The Stiller and Sandler movie Jay mentioned above was great too! Can’t remember the name of it but it has Dustin Hoffman in as well, as a very unlikeable artist and Emma Thompson.

[QualityChimp]

I watched Red Notice (Netflix) and it was a really enjoyable romp.

I actually thought it owed a debt to Jackie Chan, with the parkour action, use of scenery in fights and the ending had a lot of parallels with Operation Condor in the finale.

[QualityChimp]

Oh man, we got home from being away for Christmas and managed to watch 3 films, some kind of record!

Started with Don't Look Up (Netflix), which I really enjoyed. I thought it fascinating how the various characters reacted, however like Idiocracy, it's not that far-fetched.

The people at the top using a disaster to line their own pockets? Big corporations guiding government policy? Fantasy!

It's a comedy, but depressingly realistic, so I thought I'd try Last Train To Christmas (NowTV), which stars Michael Sheen as a flamboyant 80s nightclub owner travelling on a train with his brother. They both love each other, but also resent what they think the other one has over them.

The twist is that he can travel forward in time by moving up a carriage, changing the past to see how it changes the future.

Again, there were laughs along the way, mainly from the various outfits, but it's actually a pretty sad story as Sheen's character, Tony Towers, tries to make everyone's timelines better.

It's a decent drama, but the ending was a little unsatisfactory and wasn't the upbeat Christmas jape we hoped for and the poster promised.

So I tried again with A Song For Christmas (NowTV) a rom-com about a bassist in a metal band teaming up with a boyband to write a song for his neice and make it No.1 to save the boyband's label.

Again, it's got plenty of laughs along the way and adversity to triumph over, but also some genuine sadness that nothing can overcome.

It's very British and lots of great jokes we'd get. The cast are all pretty likeable and it's fun enough, but again, not as whimsical as the poster suggests!

So it was three fun yet slightly depressing films in a row!

[Dogg Thang]

The Stiller and Sandler movie Jay mentioned above was great too! Can’t remember the name of it but it has Dustin Hoffman in as well, as a very unlikeable artist and Emma Thompson.

The trailer looked really good. I think perhaps had it opened with Stiller and not Sandler, we’d have stuck it out longer. It just didn’t grab us when it got into Sandler and Hoffman. It was a bit ‘shouty conflicty’ if you know what I mean.

On Don’t Look Up, which you all loved, I couldn’t buy a single Jonah Hill moment and I’m also kind of tired of Mark Rylance’s schtick and felt that all his parts were a poor reading of Zuckerberg/Musk and they didn’t quite fit for me. I think had those characters been snipped out, maybe the movie would have landed better for me. Interesting movie nonetheless.

[QualityChimp]

Just watched Encanto (Disney+) with the kids. 5 y/o wanted to quit, but we persevered.

It was actually better than I thought at first because all of the annoying traits of the family actually played out and were addressed.

I liked that there wasn't a caricatured big-bad. The songs were great, animation was peerless and graphics were eye-popping.

I was thinking about if the Toy Story team would have been able to see the sequence where every single grain of sand and hair are flapping around in a storm.

Plus, it was nice to see a happy ending after yesterday.

5 y/o fave bit: "the flower girl and normal girl being friends."
10 y/o fave bit: "I liked the bit where they were in the vision."

[Neon Ignition]

I think it's one of Disney's best recent films about child abuse, I'm just annoyed that the house got away with it in the end.

[MartyG]

On Don’t Look Up, which you all loved, I couldn’t buy a single Jonah Hill moment and I’m also kind of tired of Mark Rylance’s schtick and felt that all his parts were a poor reading of Zuckerberg/Musk and they didn’t quite fit for me. I think had those characters been snipped out, maybe the movie would have landed better for me. Interesting movie nonetheless.

Thought it was more a parody of Jeff Bezos than Zuck/Musk given some of the dialogue/actions, making it far more on point.

[wakka]

I watched There Will Be Blood.

My first time of viewing this, and I like it a lot. It's essentially a character study of a late nineteenth century oil prospector's single minded ambition, as he seeks to make his fortune at any cost, and what happens to the people around him on the way.

It's the sort of film where the term 'masterpiece' gets bandied about a lot, and while I'm not quite sure I'd use that word, it's a rollicking good ride. Impeccable acting, and visually it rocks. The production design feels totally authentic. The photography is great, too.

Despite being over two and a half hours long the storytelling is actually quite economical, and part of that is down to how well shot it is. There are more than a few examples of pure visual storytelling, where a single shot tells the story. A less confident writer-director would've had more talky bits or, heaven forfend, a narrator.

It is pretty baroque and over-wrought in places, however. Towards the very end it can feel slightly like a version of De Palma's Scarface that takes itself too seriously, and I was faintly reminded of the end of First Blood in that I couldn't decide whether what I was watching was genuinely moving or completely hilarious.

It's a brilliant watch overall, though. Just a really excellent piece of filmmaking, and it tells an interesting story.

I'm so late to the party on this one that I bet everyone else has seen it, so please do let me know what you think of it if so

Just remembered that I've got another one - No Time To Die.

Boy, better have your Cliff Notes on the last couple of films ready for the first act of this one. I wasn't sure whether Vespa Lynn was a person or a motorbike which left me slightly confused as to what was going on till the story got moving proper. And there's a scene with Blofeld in prison where the oblique narrative style of the Craig films coupled with the screenwriter's assumption that you would have a deep and abiding familiarity with the previous films meant that I quite genuinely hadn't the foggiest what they were talking about.

(And I should add - I saw Spectre, and Skyfall, but when they came out donkey's years ago, and I didn't find them all that compelling personally. To expect me to remember in such great detail the events of a film from six years ago seems bonkers to me but there it is.)

OK, that off my chest - I enjoyed the film. Once it ramps up and it gets going, there's some really fun stuff in there. The tentpole action sequences are great. They looked excellent, and they were satisfying to watch. The guerilla action in the woods, the motorbike stuff near the start, all a ton of fun.

I liked the production design and the design of the gadgets. I feel many action films have succumbed to a Marvel-ification when it comes to fantasy technology (see: Skyscraper, The Meg, etc), which the Bond films have resisted for a more quasi-realistic style. I like that. It's distinctive.

One thing I thought was a shame was the new 007. She just isn't given enough to do! She's a great idea (and my God does she have impeccable dress sense - her wardrobe about blew me away. Where do I buy those sunglasses?!), but she takes virtually no action within the story. This leaves the idea of her as a replacement for Bond falling pretty flat.

Still, it's a decent watch. There's a lot to like. I could've done without some of it and it feels overlong. But when it's good, it's good.

[Brad]

The trailer looked really good. I think perhaps had it opened with Stiller and not Sandler, we’d have stuck it out longer. It just didn’t grab us when it got into Sandler and Hoffman. It was a bit ‘shouty conflicty’ if you know what I mean.

On Don’t Look Up, which you all loved, I couldn’t buy a single Jonah Hill moment and I’m also kind of tired of Mark Rylance’s schtick and felt that all his parts were a poor reading of Zuckerberg/Musk and they didn’t quite fit for me. I think had those characters been snipped out, maybe the movie would have landed better for me. Interesting movie nonetheless.

Totally get you. There’s another sandler film where he plays a jeweller and again he’s very shouty at the beginning and I almost turned off but again I’m glad I didn’t because it become excellent.

[wakka]

Uncut Gems. Which is a gem.

Is the mysterious film you're all talking about The Meyerowitz Stories?

[Dogg Thang]

Ah yes, that’s the one! It has an impressive cast and I might give it another shot at some point. Sometimes it’s just about the mood we’re in when we’re in front of a movie.

[Brad]

Just thinking it would be funny if we were talking about two different films lol. But we weren’t.

[fallenangle]

Watched the 2011 version of Jane Eyre earlier today.

I find so many 19th century 'romantic' novels almost unreadable it takes a good film or TV adaptation to peak my interest. Whilst not in the same class as the Joan Fontaine/Orson Welles 1943 classic this one with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender kept my interest throughout.

Mia Wasikowska's performance was particularly good giving JE real depth just by the use of subtle looks and the way she delivered the dialogue.

I think I've said it before in this thread that really good film actors and actresses have it in their eyes to tell you what their character is thinking often without words being necessary. That applies here in spades but you also need a good director to have confidence in the actor/actress to do this and that applies to this film too.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Black Widow

It's a weak marvel film. It introduces too many elements that have never been mentioned before that don't really gel with the MCU. The action is slapped on too thick and ignores the fact BW is just a human...how many car crashes can she survive in one film?!
The story is very safe and although the theme is justifed, it's not handled well. The villain twist is telegraphed from a mile away; when the helmet came off I just nodded to myself.
Florence Pugh is easily the best actor in it and deserves more chances to be in the MCU.

[Neon Ignition]

Space Jam: A New Legacy
I've never seen the original film so probably got more mileage out of this than I otherwise would have. It wasn't great but was kind of mildly distracted because it's so colourful etc. Not enough thought put into it though.