The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[Brad]

Agreed re: the DC Snyder films. Except I prefer the original justice league.

[Neon Ignition]

Morbius
It faces abysmal review scores but to be honest it was fine. I won't pretend to make out it was anything decent as such, it's a bit like Venom if you remove the Eddie/Venom dynamic that makes those films enjoyable. So whilst it's not as good as those films which in turn aren't as good as most MCU films I expected much worse based on what's going around on it. I've seen worse superhero films and I've seen better made but much duller ones such as Eternals too. The main thing coming from it is that if Sony really wants to pursue this MCU extension concept then they really, really need to have greater ambition and to raise their bar too. The post-credits sequences make little to no sense but as long as they're retroactively justified could eventually lead somewhere interesting.

[wakka]

Memento

It's the first time I've seen this. I remember a lot of hype around this releasing on DVD back around 2000, because of course it meant you could, via the new fangled 'Scene select' feature, watch it in chronological order.

Anyway, I finally watched it. It's pretty good. There's a lot to like here, and I think the film should be praised for both the originality of the premise and the claustrophobic feel of inhabiting the inside of Leonard's mind. It really does get across how it might feel to have your memories constantly wiped - endlessly circular and confusing, unable to judge the passage of time, trapped inside one's own mind.

So in that sense it's a great success. And I think that central element is very well reinforced through the deliberate blandness of the Anytown USA surroundings, the lack of specificity about practically everything in the world. And the acting is great. Guy Pearce plays a man who feels a lot of emotions and has no idea why he's feeling any of them, which can't be easy. Meanwhile Joe Pantoliano is pure sleaze and provides very welcome moments of comic relief.

However - it is a film that I would say is entirely wrapped up in its own clever structuring. It's more of a puzzle, or a game, than a story about people. If you strip away the nonlinear structure, I'm not sure there's a huge amount there.

But I enjoyed it. It's very distinctive and fun to watch. And much less overblown and overcomplicated than Nolan's later work.

[QualityChimp]

IIRC there's an Easter egg on the DVD that lets you play the film in chronological order.

Kinda defeats the point, though!

[wakka]

Yeah, that's it. I knew there was something like that. I don't know if that's on the Blu that I watched, though I guess it probably is.

[Atticus]

IIRC

Should have tattooed it on your forearm

[randombs]

I decided to check out Uncut Gems after QC’s glowing review.

Putting aside the eye-rolling opening scene with the camera sloooooowly zooming in on a gemstone that turns into a colon while some goofy-ass music plays, I enjoyed this.

It had its foibles and I thought the payoff was rubbish, but it wasn’t as depressing as Good Time. But unlike that film, Uncut’s main character has no redeeming qualities and after a while I found myself rooting against him! Credit to Sandler for playing a slimy git so well that it didn’t pull me out of the film at all. He was on fire.

The film looked like it had been recorded on a Sony Ericsson K500i but it was gritty and colourful and a welcome change from the boring colour schemes I’ve been subjected to in recent films.

The end.

[Dogg Thang]

I watched two VanDamme films this weekend, from around the same time period but two very different films.

First up was The Bouncer from 2018. VanDamme plays a haggard, old, beaten bouncer. A single father in need of money when he loses his job for accidentally hurting some rich kid, he takes a job at a dodgy strip club where it turns out the owners are forging money. He gets sucked into that while the police try to get him to get inside intel for them. VanDamme is absolutely brilliant in it. He is so utterly broken in it and plays that role so well. I mean, it's all over his face so I feel some of that is just where he is now in life but he really brings a lot to that role. The film is a small, grimy action crime movie and it works great. I totally loved it.

Then I watched Kickboxer Vengeance. It's the remake of Kickboxer, so some dude is playing the main character and VanDamme takes the role of mentor. Dave Bautista and Gina Carano are also in it, along with a bunch of fighter guys who are apparently proper fighters. It's essentially the same basic idea as Kickboxer - Kurt Sloane is training as a kickboxer so he can challenge the guy who kicked his brother's ass to get revenge. But to its credit, the movie tells this story in a completely different way. The structure is entirely different and how it gets to its end is basically all new. And I really appreciated that they did this because, actually, the movie can stand up very well in its own right. I fully expected not to like this one and I came away really enjoying it. The main guy is a great fighter with such a nice guy innocent face that he brought me along with the story. VanDamme plays an odd mentor - not what I expected. I thought they'd make him like a VanDamme Mr Miyagi. They didn't. The action is good, it moves along at a very brisk pace and it delivers. I liked it.

And there was a real treat in the end credits. Not a story/movie spoiler at all but I'll tag it all the same -

->Open Spoiler<-

Over the end credits, the main guy does VanDamme's dance from the original Kickboxer while the original dance plays in split screen. It was a lot of fun.

[randombs]

Logan

First time seeing this. I was aware the rating is higher than the typical X-Men stuff but holy moly I had quite the shock when Wolfie’s claws went through some dude’s face

I thought Stephen Merchant would just be a token addition but he was really good.

What a (skull) cracking film.

[Dogg Thang]

It’s a good movie but, man, it’s a tough watch and also it doesn’t have VanDamme in it.

[prinnysquad]

Boiling Point

On Netflix. The one set in a restaurant and filmed in a single take. I’m wary of single takes being a gimmick, but in this instance, it worked well. It added to the film, rather than detracted from it. Following the characters around as things escalated afforded the film a sense of intimate investment. It’s an artistic choice that sucks the viewer into the scenario and the characters as things start to fall apart.

It’s strange, because it’s also a choice that masks some obvious signposting to some degree. Afterwards, I thought about the plot points and they were so obvious, that in another film they’d be rather detrimental. However, being up close and personal with the staff meant that I was so involved and spellbound, that I could overlook them as weaknesses.

Stephen Graham is absolutely impeccable. He is one of our finest actors. Special mention, too, to Vinette Robinson as the exasperated sous chef, acting as the glue that tries to hold everything together.

A minus point for a lack of JCVD.

[wakka]

Petition for title change to "The Films You Have Watched Starring JCVD Thread"

[Dogg Thang]

Petition for title change to "The Films You Have Watched Starring JCVD Thread"

Seconded! Also thirded and all the other numbersed too!

[prinnysquad]

Yaksha: Ruthless Operations

South Korean Netflix film. A dude from Squid Game is sent to a Chinese province to investigate the irregularities of their own security service in that area. He is sucked into a wider crisis based around spy community shenanigans.

It’s ok. I enjoyed it. It’s the type of thing that’s been done by others better, but I liked the chemistry between the leads, and the production is very slick. There’s some good cinematography during the action scenes, and the story is easy enough to digest.

[randombs]

It’s a good movie but, man, it’s a tough watch and also it doesn’t have VanDamme in it.

I award it five VanDammes out of seven.