The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[Dogg Thang]

I was made to take a break from VanDamme season and so yesterday watched Upgrade. I loved it. Thought it was superb. A tech revenge story that was kind of ‘what if KITT was in a person?’ with a real horror film vibe, not surprising given the director. A real treat.

And today I managed to get to the cinema to see Spider-Man No Way Home. It was very good. The setup didn’t hold up to a moment’s scrutiny and brings the ending down with it but, hey, it’s a movie about superheroes and multiverses so I can let that slide. It really delivered on the premise and turned out to be wonderful to see some of these familiar characters back. Oddly, even the ones I haven’t actually seen before with one character being a particular stand out. The main concept was strong and a lot better than the usual beat the bad guy story. A good movie.

[teddymeow]

Venom Let There Be Carnage

So good I fell asleep 20 minutes before the end...

[randombs]

Venom Let There Be Carnage

So good I fell asleep 20 minutes before the end...

Hey, at least you didn’t fall asleep 20 mins into the beginning!

[Neon Ignition]

Venom: Let There Be Nappage



Cyrano
Nipped to the cinema on Saturday and watched this, the Peter Dinklage movie of the broadway show. There are a few quirks such as the sound on the songs which sound a little weird at first, like they cleared up on set sound rather than added it in post like usually happens. It's a likeable story, it feels like Moulin Rouge stole a lot from the show as plot wise they share a fair bit in set up. Dinklage is working 110& Tyrion charm throughout. A film that spends its entire runtime pulling at your heartstrings, though never quite manages to yank your heart out. Decent film overall.

[QualityChimp]

Trying to get through films that appear on my "100 Films To See" poster AND feature at the Florida parks!

Toy Story (1995 via Dinsey+)
Still cinema gold. It's funny that it was eye-popping at the time, but looks crude today, but thankfully the story and the performances really hold up. I think I might prefer the sequel because Woody and Buzz are more likeable once they've settled into their roles.

Up (2009 via Disney+)
Yikes, is there a tougher opening section to a film? I remember going to see this to cheer ourselves up after being told we couldn't have kids and it was heart breaking. I can't remember seeing it since, probably because of that start. I was blubbing again, but this time thinking of my parents who were both unable to grow old together. Bloody hell.
Thankfully after the start it's pretty much adventure and laughs with a great cast of characters.
I still really laugh at the bit where there's a knock on the door and Russell is on the porch clinging on for dear life!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011 via Blu-Ray)
Our Potter adventure comes to an end with another decent entry that still manages to have some fun and have some exciting sequences, especially the Gringotts Bank section.
I particularly love how Neville is MVP in this. He gets arguably some of the best moments in the film and he's the only one with the balls to smack talk Voldemort to his face.
Gotta say for the disc crew, this has an amazing feature where instead of a commentary track, they intersperse interviews with the cast and crew and behind the scenes footage, like Warwick Davies appears on screen as a goblin, then it goes to a smaller window whilst Warwick talks about how they applied the makeup effects over a larger shot of him covered in liquid latex.
It's a really cool feature and I'll definitely watch it again because the Studios Tour has revealed how clever the effects are and how many practical ones there are.

[Asura]

After the disappointment last week that Timecop wasn't on any streaming service here, I got the blu-ray and watched it last night. Absolute STONE. COLD. CLASSIC. It's a superb movie. I'm on a total VanDamme kick at the moment. I have to admit, back in the day I just wasn't a fan, in spite of always having at thing for Kickboxer and Bloodsport, and so I feel like I'm rediscovering something totally different in his movies now.

I've been on a Van Damme kick lately too and I just saw this for the first time, and I really didn't get on with it. Horses for courses obviously, but what do you like about it? I found a lot to enjoy ironically, like the depiction of the future that reminded me in some ways of The Running Man.

I'm finding Kickboxer and Bloodsport to still be the guy's peak.

What's kinda fascinating is when you see the "good onscreen personality in a middling/bad movie situation" with someone like Van Damme - because I tried to watch No Retreat No Surrender a while back, and recently watched a YouTube video about the movie Hackers, and that had a similar thing with Angelina Jolie.

I remember back when I first watched Hackers, it was on VHS with my dad - and he said, right away, when the credits were about to roll, "that girl, she's going to be a big star. Can totally see it". He explained that it was obvious, because the film comes to life for every scene she's in, and feels less vivid when she isn't.

Van Damme has the same effect in No Retreat No Surrender. He's only in the movie here-and-there but whenever he is, it suddenly becomes a much better movie for like 2 minutes.

[Dogg Thang]

Van Damme has the same effect in No Retreat No Surrender. He's only in the movie here-and-there but whenever he is, it suddenly becomes a much better movie for like 2 minutes.

I have never seen that but I have it sitting here on Blu-Ray along with The Quest, which I have also never seen. Looking forward to watching them.

As for Timecop, I just thought it was a pretty cool movie. Playing with time is always fun but add VanDamme to that and I thought it just really worked.

[Asura]

I have never seen that but I have it sitting here on Blu-Ray along with The Quest, which I have also never seen. Looking forward to watching them.

Strongly recommend The Quest. I mean, it's not a great movie but it's essentially a retread of Bloodsport with a higher budget, and some of the martial arts performances are great to watch.

[wakka]

I've been on a Van Damme kick lately too

Wahey!!!

On topic: I also enjoy the films of JCVD.

[Atticus]

After reading an article gushing with praise for 90s hitman thriller Leon I thought I'd revisit what I always felt was a slightly overrated film. Watching it again had its moments ... Reno and Portman are both great and the film ends on a perfect note ... but Gary Oldman is way too ott, and his goons are too silly. Some of the dialogue is ropey and for a film with action it's actually the quieter moments I enjoy best. But what I enjoyed most was seeing New York in the 1990s. I love how films can preserve locations in time.

[Neon Ignition]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The new one that positions itself as a new second film to the original. A group of idealistic (i.e dumb as hell) young 'uns travel to a dead town that they have hoovered up the land rights to in order to auction off the buildings to other like minded young 'uns in order to revive the town seemingly entirely off the basis that people will travel 70 miles into nowhere to visit bakery's. But, Leatherface is still there, living in an orphange with an old woman he cares for (but isn't related to) and events set him off again meanwhile the girl who escaped in the original is old now and has waited 50 years for revenge. The film fails to learn anything from Halloween's success at this approach and pretty much turns Leatherface into Myers and involves some staggeringly dumb decision making. I've seen many worse horrors but really TCM is a franchise that just needs to be allowed to go away.

[wakka]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The new one that positions itself as a new second film to the original. A group of idealistic (i.e dumb as hell) young 'uns travel to a dead town that they have hoovered up the land rights to in order to auction off the buildings to other like minded young 'uns in order to revive the town seemingly entirely off the basis that people will travel 70 miles into nowhere to visit bakery's.

[Lebowski]

Uncharted
I imagine that if you went into this blind then it would be a middling action adventure film. Being familiar with the games does hamper it somewhat more. Chloe is fine in this as are both main villain characters, Holland is likeable but completely and utterly misses the mark as Nathan Drake. Whalberg as Sully... man alive, he plays it as himself in anything else you've seen but even if he weren't in it the characterisation of Sully is largely an utter bastardisation of the character, awful. Half the film is puzzling and adventuring, the other half is lifted from Uncharted 4 with a sprinkle of Uncharted 3 which is also a weird approach. It was passably entertaining but kind of shocking that they spent so many years working on a film this vanilla that opts for a weakly handled incarnation of its world.

If you take the sliding scale of quality of these types of films as being:

Indiana Jones------The Mummy------National Treasure------Tomb Raider------Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Then Uncharted would sit somewhere around Tomb Raider

Took the kids to see this over the weekend, and my daughter loved it she was on the edge of her seat at certain bits and really engages with it, and it feels like their trying to get a younger audience on board as its an old fashioned pirate treasure adventure film for a new audience.

I'd put it above National Treasure its a fun film with a decent script a likable cast and some great globetrotting adventuring. Yeah its not gonna win any Oscars, and its not super close to the source material of the game it feels like they have taken a younger naive Nathan Drake as hes not the person from the games, and wanted a bankable face to bring cinema goers in and if anything that's kind of worked. A great switch your brain off and root for the good guys popcorn film with high production values.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-03-02-why-the-uncharted-film-is-the-treasure-ive-been-looking-for#comments

this is a good article about it the comments are pretty funny,

'I expected a bad film. I mentally prepared for a bad film, but actually I really enjoyed it. A genuinely decent action film."

[QualityChimp]

If they enjoyed Uncharted, check out Tintin, which was great, even without the 3D, which I thought really made it pop.

[Dogg Thang]

I watched The Quest, a VanDamme film directed by VanDamme himself. It’s basically a big budget version of Bloodsport, with fighters summoned from around the world to take part in a tournament. But having that budget, there are loads of detours starting with a baffling opening from Oliver where VanDamme dressed as a clown has a family of young street urchins stealing for him, leading to pirate battles, getting abandoned on an island by Roger Moore and then finally training to become a fighter. Once it settles in a bit, it’s pretty good but it’s almost distracted by its budget. Get me some elephants! No, horses! Wait, can we have both?

Ultimately it’s pretty good but not as tight, raw and satisfying as Bloodsport.

The blu ray extras are funny because there are only two things here of note. One is an interview with the guy who played Roger Moore’s sidekick. A small role in the movie but maybe this is the only guy they could get? Well not quite because there is another interview too. In the movie, there are world fighters and a Scottish fighter is seen for about 20 seconds or so. Yep, that’s who else they could get for an interview.

The sidekick guy was actually interesting though because he clearly did not care a damn what he said. He called one of the producers shady and said VanDamme often didn’t turn up and it was really the 2nd unit director who actually had any control over the movie. He had a few funny stories along the way.

I also watched The Amazing Spider-Man. I had seen maybe half an hour of this before on tv but have never actually watched the movie. After the recent Marvel Spider-Man, I thought it was time to give it a go. It’s pretty good! The big issue with the movie for me is the reason I didn’t watch it back in the day - I had seen a lot of Spider-Man at that point and wasn’t convinced I needed a retelling of the same story. And lots of this movie is exactly that. It’s good but so familiar that it’s largely redundant to anyone who knows Spider-Man. Nevertheless, it’s enjoyable and well told and, once it gets past much of the origin stuff, has some pretty great sequences. It was cheesy but I adored the crane sequence. And I thought Garfield was superb. So yeah, I enjoyed it.