Films You Have Watched

[Neon Ignition]

Previous thread 6 here (QC):

https://bordersdown.net/threads/129113-The-Films-You-Watched-Thread-VI-The-Undiscovered-Movie

Time for the next incarnation of the long running thread and here begins its seventh run. I'll open with an expanded thought on the most recent film I watched:


Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
There are some threads that I get they wanted to cover but could have been cut, overall though this is louder and more eventful than Vol.2 and overall better. Despite how I went in with my expectations, the emotional beats didn't land as hard as Vol.1 and Vol.2's but that's okay, I think it broadly leaves things on the right note. Broadstroke, this is an MCU very much of the Phase 2-3 mould, a cut above the recent efforts and a signpost of how Gunn is a loss to the MCU.

The view I'm taking is that I'm hoping Gunn decided to opt against the obvious rather than be forced in his hand by Marvel and Disney. I suspect it was a bit half and half but the level of character focus, or at least it being central, highlights where so many recent entries have been falling short and hopefully where the new DCU under his stewardship might find some footing.

[Neon Ignition]

Bad CG, cheap visuals, terrible acting from british kids and a needlessly embellished story that detracts from the film it's cynically remaking rather than add anything of worth to it. It can only be a Disney Live Action Remake of an animated classic...

Peter Pan and Wendy
Disney shows astounding gall to spit this out twenty plus years after Pirates with another visually soulless retread that casts Jude Law as Hook (the only one making a real effort), Milla Jovovich's nepobaby and a god awfully cast Peter in this rerun that tweaks the story to expand on Hook and Pan's history and, as is often the case with these, end up accidentally making Pan the real villain when you think about it for two seconds. I've definitely seen worse from the mouse house but this is still another slab on the tombstone of Disney's live action remake reputation mouseoleum.

[Finsbury Girl]

The Alpinist - a doco on a super eccentric but genius climber I had not heard of. When hearing him speak he reminded me of Heston Blumenthal in that it is instantly clear that these people are really on another level. A really fascinating and sometimes terrifying watch.

->Open Spoiler<-

I had not heard of his subsequent death so the ending of this hit me hard. What an absolute tragedy

[Neon Ignition]

Clash of the Titans
The 1981 version. As we slowly continue making our way through the years it's easy to appreciate the work that went into the stop time animation of the creatures etc in this. As a film overall though it's a plodding feature with some hokey acting in places, you could trim it hard.

[fallenangle]

I did not realise there was now a Films You Watched Thread.......version Vll.

Watched 2021 The Mauritanian on BBC2 last night about the appalling injustice and torture practices carried out by US agencies and the military at Guantanamo Bay.

Powerful stuff and, of course, it wears its heart on its sleeve throughout in delivering its message and withering condemnation of what went on there. However from a film drama point of view its unrelenting hammering home of that message went on too long.

Nevertheless it just about held my interest right to the end mainly because of the great performances from all the actors involved most notably Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tahar Rahim.

Worth watching.

[QualityChimp]

Sorry Neon, I missed that there's a new thread.
This thread is stickied and the old one locked and unstuck.
Do we still need to do this nowadays?

I watched Black Phone (2021 via NowTV).
Written by Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, it's a tale of 1970s school kids being abducted by a mysterious figure.
Will his next victim escape and will his sister's premonitions save him before it's too late?

So, it's got a real King vibe to it and I really enjoyed it, with some tense moments, but I dunno, the supernatural elements just seemed tacked on to move the story along.
Worth a watch if you like IT or as Stephen King described it - "Stand By Me, in Hell."

[Neon Ignition]

To be honest, I've no idea if we still need to. It started back when we lost all the 2016 content and it was mentioned that when threads hit 2,000 posts a new one should be started to prevent issues

It might not be required anymore, [MENTION=25]charlesr[/MENTION] will know


Blow Out
John Travolta's '81 film in which he plays a sound engineer who is out recording sounds when he witnesses, and audio records, an assassination and becomes embroiled in the cover up. The idea is alright but the film isn't complex enough to carry itself and mixes in the cliche'd backstory to the character of him having prior been a cop trauma'd by a case gone wrong etc.

Body Heat
William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in a thriller in which the heat is mostly contained to the sweaty location of the film rather than any content. Good cast and a common film type of the time so I can see why it did well but its very slow and uninteresting today.

[charlesr]

The Alpinist - a doco on a super eccentric but genius climber I had not heard of. When hearing him speak he reminded me of Heston Blumenthal in that it is instantly clear that these people are really on another level. A really fascinating and sometimes terrifying watch.

->Open Spoiler<-

I had not heard of his subsequent death so the ending of this hit me hard. What an absolute tragedy

Yeah, this is a great film. A real insight into the delicate balance between people that want to enjoy their hobby but get paid for it, and the needs of the sponsors.

[QualityChimp]

Blow Out is decent, but not particularly thrilling.
Nice to see Travolta in a different role at that time.
I thought Enemy of the State did it better.

[charlesr]

To be honest, I've no idea if we still need to. It started back when we lost all the 2016 content and it was mentioned that when threads hit 2,000 posts a new one should be started to prevent issues

It might not be required anymore, [MENTION=25]charlesr[/MENTION] will know

There's no way of knowing until it goes wrong! In theory, the current server is way faster and should handle much longer threads now. We could try. There's a backup each night, plus monthly to my PC.

[Neon Ignition]

Might be best to test it softly, keeping the stickied threads rolling and the non-stickied ones refreshing. I'm guessing that would be fine as there's only a handful of threads that are long running in that way

[wakka]

I love Blow Out! Such a cool film...one of those ones I watched randomly as a teenager on TV late at night. I've seen it numerous times since and it really captures my imagination. De Palma is such a boss.

Body Heat is pretty good too I reckon. It's basically Double Indemnity, but dripping in 90s erotic thriller sweat. You have to be into that sort of thing though. Definitely better than a lot of its contemporaries. I know resident 90s erotic thriller expert [MENTION=3144]Dogg Thang[/MENTION] rates it as well.

I watched Promising Young Woman.

Really, really liked this. Falling Down for the #MeToo era, except, like, one thousand times better. Carey Mulligan's college dropout underachiever goes on secret nightly missions of revenge against sleazy men as a kind of campaign of redress after her best friend was raped some years earlier.

What I loved about this is how it continually wrongfoots you. It's a genuinely intriguing story, spattered with interesting cinematography and inspired musical choices that contribute to making it a real thrill ride. I've heard it called tonally inconsistent, but I don't agree - for me it's pitched as a black comedy, set up as one, and delivers as one.

Excellent.

[Dogg Thang]

Body Heat is pretty good too I reckon. It's basically Double Indemnity, but dripping in 90s erotic thriller sweat. You have to be into that sort of thing though. Definitely better than a lot of its contemporaries. I know resident 90s erotic thriller expert [MENTION=3144]Dogg Thang[/MENTION] rates it as well.

He does. I really like Body Heat.

[QualityChimp]

resident 90s erotic thriller expert @Dogg Thang

[Neon Ignition]

That should be a formal name change