The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

[QualityChimp]

Army of Thieves (2021 Netflix)

This is the spinoff film from Army of the Dead, but without the out-of-focus camera.
It's the prequel story of the safe-cracker from AotD and how he starts his career in crime.

It's a fun enough watch, mainly dependant Matthias Schweighöfer as Ludwig Dieter who's likeable optimism is fun to follow.
He also directed it too. It's got a mix of tones with heist thrills, but also Tomb Raideresque reverence to a series of ancient safes made by a master craftsman.

I think my main problem was it felt like they had all the time in the world to crack the safes, rather than being in a rush.
Set that aside and it's an easy Friday night watch.

Funny to see Guz Khan as Rolph the getaway driver too!

I also saw Jailbreak, but I'll post about that in the Fu thread.

[Dogg Thang]

Just watched Prey. Absolutely loved it. Such a simple film incredibly well put together. After utter **** Predator movies this just comes along and stands up on its own without any nonsense. Basic person versus Predator film and it works so well. Wasn’t quite expecting that.

[Neon Ignition]

Goldeneye
It was this weeks Bond movie at the cinema and the last one I'll be headed there to catch. Still one of the best entries from the real best Bond, if the sequels had been closer to this...

[fallenangle]

On the subject of Bond - I watch You Only Live Twice yet again and still found it enjoyable if daft and even cringeworthy in places. It was the film all schoolboys wanted to see when it first came out but I was too young at the time. I actually saw it after the first Bond I watched in the cinema: OHMSS, which is one of the best stories IMHO and the poignant ending even George Lazenby couldn't ruin. But how he was ever cast as Bond defies explanation.

On the subject of miscasting one of the worst examples I also watched this weekend: Ridley Scott's Legend on BBC2 with Tom Cruise. Its a film I love to hate because it often looks amazing and is good, at times, but then veers off a cliff into awfulness so often it is close to disaster. But Tim Curry nearly saves the day as the most fantastically theatrical over the top devil ever - perfect casting.

I'd also add Mia Sara to the positives, there's a great little scene where the devil is try to seduce her and has her dancing with her own wedding dress. I'm not a fan of dance in any form but the imaginative surrealness of that I thought very effective.

Incidentally the version of Legend shown was the one with the Jerry Goldsmith original soundtrack that I don't remember at all. The usual one you usually see in the UK is with Tangerine Dream's replacement soundtrack which has the end scene and end title music featuring the sublime voice of Yes's Jon Anderson.

[teddymeow]

Just watched Prey. Absolutely loved it. Such a simple film incredibly well put together. After utter **** Predator movies this just comes along and stands up on its own without any nonsense. Basic person versus Predator film and it works so well. Wasn’t quite expecting that.

Yeah, I watched this over two nights (fell asleep 20 minutes in after starting it late on Saturday and waking up an hour in so gave up and watched again in full on Sunday).

Loved it, so much that I went and started watching the OG film afterwards.

[Lebowski]

Penguin Highway is a film about Pengunis suddenly appearing in a small village that's hundreds of miles from the sea and centers around a boy and his small group of friends trying to work out why, its a real joy of a film, full of lazy summer exploration and a really cool central mystery that gets quite trippy and strange towards the end but has a really nice sweet satisfying conclusion.

I watched this with my twelve year old daughter and she loved it but was a little bit embarrassed about some of the subject matter, the central protagonist is just starting to notice girls but in an innocent kind of way and cant quite figure out why he finds boobs so interesting, its not massively dwelled on but worth noting that its here in a few scenes

[QualityChimp]

One I've had my eye on since it was announced was Carter (2020 via Netflix), which is by the Director of "The Villainess", Jeong Byeong-Gil, which is also worth tracking down if you've not seen it because he's a really inventive filmmaker.

The concept of this film is that a man is wakened by a team of CIA operatives because he has just recorded a ransom video, but he has no memory of it. Suddenly, an implanted voice crackles to life and tells him to escape and how to do it. He's then embroiled in a snaking plot about creating a cure to a rage-zombie-like virus, but having no memory, he's not sure if he's working for North Korea, South Korea or the CIA.

The hook to this is that it all happens in real time in one continuous shot.
Obviously this can't happen for a whole film (see "1917"), but each of the edits are kind of "morphed" into each other, which is probably for budgetary or logistical reasons, but it feels like a stylistic decision too and once you're used to it (like subtitles), you stop noticing and just wonder where the hell this roller coaster is going to take you.

It's like a cross between Hardcore Henry, Crank, Fury Road and that Michael Jackson video for "Black & White"!

The whole film is like this, following him from fyring pan to fire for 2 hours, which is quite gruelling!

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[QualityChimp]

I wanted so miniature city smashing mayhem, but my timing was all off.
I watched the start of Godzilla: Final Wars (DVD) before having to stop so my daughter could watch something, then started Gamera Vs. Barugon and it was nearly time to eat, so I've not logged those as "watched" yet.

As a family, we sat and watched Lightyear (Disney+) together and I really enjoyed it!
A few have been unimpressed with it, but I thought it was great. I was goggle-eyed at the gorgeous design of everything from spaceships to cars to robots, but also looking out for references I recognised like the Space Rangers logo.
It wasn't saturated with callbacks, but we laughed as Buzz and I simultaneously said the line "No signs of intelligent life anywhere."
I did love all those nods and with 2 kids, I've sat through the Toy Story films a few times so every "Alpha Quadrant" reference was noticed!

It was an interesting story, with a few twists and some deeper concepts to chew on, akin to Interstellar.
However, everyone loved Socks the RoboCat!

I started watching Prey (Disney+) on Saturday night, but couldn't stop fiddling with my phone, so stopped and did it properly on Sunday with my phone out of reach and I really enjoyed it. Apart from the heavy-handed "women belong in the kitchen teepee, not hunting" message, the actual action is pretty great.
Surprisingly well-lit and not reliant on darkness for tension, it's fun too see how Naru (Amber Midthunder) learns how to adapt and hunt the hunter.
Director Dan Trachtenberg did the excellent 10 Cloverfield Lane, so he's definitely a name to watch out for. This looks great throughout including a moody, misty baiting sequence.
The original Predator film is so great, the sequels are always going to be unfairly compared, but I felt Predators was given an unfair appraisal for not being as good as the original, but Prey is being given a bit more elbow room because there hasn't been a good Predator film for ages. *shrug*
I'd rank them 1, 2, Prey, Predators, but they all have their own merits and they're all on Disney+ at the moment.

[Brad]

Day Shift:

Jamie Fox and Snoop Dogg.
Absolutely ridiculous, OTT Vampire movie. Overall a very by-the-numbers typical Hollywood event but there were some imaginative vampire kills. Quite humorous in places too. Worth a watch.

[QualityChimp]

Day Shift:

Jamie Fox and Snoop Dogg.
Absolutely ridiculous, OTT Vampire movie. Overall a very by-the-numbers typical Hollywood event but there were some imaginative vampire kills. Quite humorous in places too. Worth a watch.

Scott Adkins is in this too, so I'm deffo going to check it out, cheers!

[Neon Ignition]

I'd rank them 1, 2, Prey, Predators, but they all have their own merits and they're all on Disney+ at the moment.

Ignoring the existence of the fourth film - respect

[charlesr]

At 1:06:10 in Moonfall (on Prime), Jimmy (kid) is playing a shmup. Anyone?

[Baseley09]

At 1:06:10 in Moonfall (on Prime), Jimmy (kid) is playing a shmup. Anyone?

I did just look no idea too modern for me

[charlesr]

Hah me too. Thanks for trying. Looks a bit Rtype

[QualityChimp]

I watched Day Shift (Netflix) last night and I really enjoyed it. (Thanks Brad!)
I guess it's formulaic to a point, but that doesn't stop it being a whole lot of fun.
Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg Thang rollin' around a sun-saturated LA killing vamps to a hip-hop soundtrack is as much fun as it sounds.

The action shifted up a notch once Adkins appeared, but there's plenty of other thrilling moments and humour.

I really laughed at the opening vamp fight!