Films You Have Watched

[fuse]

Felt like crossing one of the Ghibli films I'd not seen before off the list: From Up on Poppy Hill. It's all charming slice-of-life whimsy for the most part, until there is a major WHAT THE HECK deviation in the plot that eventually does get resolved, but not in a way that ever allowed me to recover from it. Also found it weird that it's so visually in step with the Ghibli house style but missing the Hisaishi score - and what it had instead really did jar a fair bit for me. Not as catastrophic as popular opinion on Miyazaki Jr would have you believe, but not one to rush to either.

Then there's Threads, which I've meant to watch for ages but never have. On one hand I think it's pretty impressive in scope for something made on what is very clearly a shoestring budget, but on the other it clearly struggles with the enormity of what it's trying to do. It never really settles on whether it wants to be a public service broadcast, or a documentary, and as such, as a film with a narrative to push it doesn't really hold up. Harrowing, important, and a very powerful watch, just not particularly engaging.

The Conversation was very good. For something about surveillance it didn't feel as dated as I was expecting, and despite sagging slightly in the middle, the last 30 mins or so definitely made up for it. Only realised after that Coppola produced this in the same two-year span as Godfathers part one and two. What the ****.

I'd watched the opening 30 mins of Blue Ruin a long-ass time ago, and it's taken a lot of time to come back to it. It's a decently made but very sparse revenge thriller which is messy and gritty in a way that feels like the polar opposite of something like John Wick where everything from the action to the plot is clean and clinical. It's quite unsatisfying, but in a way that feels intentional and kind of good?

Finally, Tales from Earthsea, and ahhh yes, ok, now it makes sense why Goro Miyazaki has this reputation. Thought the intro was clumsy and confusing, but after giving it some more time I came to realise that no, that's just the vibe of the whole damned thing. It's also quite boring! There's lots of really unsubtle moralising, borrowed ideas that appear once then are totally forgotten about, and just generally it fails to draw any kind of connection between individual moments or characters. Not just disappointing, but quite bad in spite of the powerhouse making it look like it does.

[Brad]

Atlas.

The story concept is not bad but nothing was going to make this movie good. However, if they'd cast an actress rather than Jennifer Lopez as the lead it would have been a lot better. Any actress would do. Well, apart from the one that plays Maddy in the Bosch TV series. There were a couple of decent moments but they were largely outweighed by the generally poor acting and dialogue.

[QualityChimp]

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Prime)
I'm sick of all these biopics just picking and choosing which facts to use and just making the rest up for the sake of a good story. I'm looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody.
So it's great to finally watch a biopic absolutely grounded in facts and no deviation from the truth, covering Weird Al's rise to fame and events such as when he dated Madonna, wrote the original composition "Eat It" but got parodied by Michael Jackson or had a gun battle with Pablo Escobar.

[Dogg Thang]

That sounds fun. Is it good?

[QualityChimp]

That sounds fun. Is it good?

It's fun as you watch how ridiculous it can get.
It made me laugh throughout at how silly it was and the over-importance of parody songs it suggests, but I guess I genuinely would like a WAY biopic!
Also, it's not as thoroughly bonkers as UHF, which remains one of my favourite films.
Worth a watch, though.

Longlegs (Cinema)
I got more from this than MaXXXine, but there are parallels with how the plot plays out and how the first section is the strongest, where it's detective work investigating a serial killer, but he's toying with her. Definite elements of Silence of the Lambs.
There are only a couple of jump-scares and relies a lot more of an excellently unsettling tone, where you're expecting something creepy to edge into frame (but usually doesn't).

It's tropey as hell, with FBI agents mooching around spooky crime scenes at night with crap torches, wandering through misty forests or sat alone in darkened offices/libraries, however you don't go on the ghost train expecting a well-lit and cobweb-free smoothly run rail service.
I felt it didn't quite hit the landing.
GENUINE SPOILERS:

->Open Spoiler<-

The reliance on a twist that was stupid if you think about it for 1 second, and that final cop out of, "pffft, yeah something satanic happened."

Horror fans should check this out before it becomes a franchise and we're up to Longlegs 18: Freddy Vs. Longlegs.

[Atticus]

Watched the 4k Criterion release of The Last Picture Show last week. Set over a year in a small, dying Texas town ... the young high-schoolers getting their kicks and coming to terms with young adulthood ... and the old timers who never left the place all cross paths. I can't think of many films that go deeper into my emotions than this one. It connects from so many angles. The joy and pain of being young. The unstoppable passing of time. The moments we treasure. A true masterpiece.

[Atticus]

Watched Event Horizon for the first time. The space/distress beacon thing is always a good draw. And I wasn't expecting a lot, just a decent budget sci-fi b-movie, and it is that, but it's not a lot more. I just felt if lacked something I can't quite put my finger on. It was a decent looker though ... stunning production design ... and sean Pertwee was great as always.

[QualityChimp]

Blur: To The End (cinema) was a lovely chronicle of the band's reformation to record one last album and to finally play Wembley Stadium.
Quite moving, at times, as they recollect their lives together in the band, growing up in the limelight, and growing older.
I found The Darkness documentary a bit depressing as it was quite downbeat, as they seemed unhappy with everything from the fans to fickle fame to each other, but this was wistful, yet grateful.
I was quite emotional towards the end and it's sad knowing they've called it a day and I'll probably never see them live again.

Jaws 3 (Prime).
I seem to remember liking the idea of an underwater theme park, but this was rubbish.
They moan that Bruce looked fake, but the effects in this were awful chromakey green screens.

Rolling Thunder (Prime)
Massive disappointment as this wasn't about agent Albatross taking down Geldra to a funky chiptune banger of a theme tune, but a revenge thriller starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones as Vietnam veterans struggling to adjust to civilian life, feeling more at home when forced down a path of bloody revenge.
Written by the same author as Taxi Driver, this is another Yale of an isolated man taking the law into his own hands, but less grey area than Bickle's confused mind.
Brutal and of-its-time, I enjoyed it's unrestrained ruthlessness.

[Baseley09]

Love Rolling Thunder it's a real mans burden classic. One of Tarantino's favorites if I recall.

[Yakumo]

Watched Event Horizon for the first time. The space/distress beacon thing is always a good draw. And I wasn't expecting a lot, just a decent budget sci-fi b-movie, and it is that, but it's not a lot more. I just felt if lacked something I can't quite put my finger on. It was a decent looker though ... stunning production design ... and sean Pertwee was great as always.

I own Event Horizon on BluRay, some of that alternate cut scenes are pretty shocking. They should have left them in.
I do remember watching it on the cinema back in the day. It was a pretty good experience on the big screen.

[QualityChimp]

I own Event Horizon on BluRay, some of that alternate cut scenes are pretty shocking. They should have left them in.
I do remember watching it on the cinema back in the day. It was a pretty good experience on the big screen.

Yeah, I saw it in the cinema. I remember feeling really dizzy in that opening shot as the camera rotates to the spaceship window.
I remember hearing that the shot cost a big chunk of the budget but can't remember where I heard it.

Personally, I think less-is-more with the gore, just hinting at the insanity that happens is enough, but they did release an uncut version, but test audiences fainted!

https://screenrant.com/event-horizon-movie-blood-orgy-original-cut-unwatchable/

Love Rolling Thunder it's a real mans burden classic. One of Tarantino's favorites if I recall.

I love a good revenge thriller and this was interesting because it's questionable if he ever really came home from Vietnam, with dialogue talking about "when I was alive" or " It's like my eyes are open and I'm looking at you but I'm dead. They've pulled out whatever it was inside of me. It never hurt at all after that and it never will."
I think I like how uncompromisingly dark it is and also that glimpse into America at that time (like Deer Hunter).

[Yakumo]

Nice read. Thanks for linking to that article.
Yeah, I know the scene you mean. On the big screen that was pretty impressive, especially for a late 90s movie.

[Atticus]

I would like to see the original long cut of Event Horizon. Sounds like a lot got the chop.
Yeah, the implied atrocities are really effective. And that twisty opening shot tied my brain in a knot even at home, bet it was nuts on the big screen.

[fuse]

I'd been keen to watch Crimes of the Future, and it just popped up on Mubi. Not quite as overtly shocking as I was steeling myself for, but it is certainly very striking both to look at and in terms of its ideas. It got my attention right away and didn't let up, even as the haze of the bewildering opening and its world started to lift. I remember a few commenters begrudging it for being a bit of a retread of some ideas Cronenburg's gone to before, and I think that I've not explored his filmography exhaustively might have worked in my favour here, as I didn't get bogged down by this and really quite liked it.

[Neon Ignition]

There is only one screen in a reachable distance so we've never bothered before but later this week is our eldests birthday and last night was its last showing so we travelled out to go the cinema and for the first time see a showing in 4DX, it had to be something that would make the most of the features and so we made sure to catch whilst we could see...

Twisters
Within the opening scene we're nearly thrown out of our chairs. Mist sent out when the tornado's are up close, water when it rains along with wind etc. The seats barely ever stopped moving so god help who's job it was to come up with the programme for them. I'm trying not to fuse the view of the film with the experience, the 4DX was fun and he loved it (we didn't tell him till it started up). Definitely something fun to add to a film that fits it (Missus wants to see Top Gun 3 in it) but most films wouldn't need it, this being an obvious natural fit. The film itself, it depends on what you thought of the original. It doesn't reference the first film. The first wasn't a classic but it was a well made film on the subject and this sits at the same bar. It feels like it's a sequel, the tone and visuals are similar and it has enough going on to stop any sag happening in between. A film you'll enjoy whilst it's on but not be gagging to rewatch.