Films You Have Watched

[Nu-Eclipse]

Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)

It's pretty wild that Akira Kurosawa wrote arguably the best B-Movie to come from the infamous Cannon Group, Inc. B-Movie stable during its 1980s golden-age.

Jon Voight, Eric Roberts and Rebecca De Mornay (as well as John P. Ryan in a somewhat clichéd sadistic prison warden role) all quite clearly overact but play off of each other well. The real star of this show is the eponymous vehicle and the impressive (for its time, obviously) stuntwork surrounding it over the course of the film.

Entertaining enough for what it is but probably would've been better if it had a 15-20% shorter runtime.

[Dogg Thang]

I watched Black Bag at the cinema. British spy drama by Steven Soderbergh. Fassbender was great but, honestly, I felt the story was messy and a season of Slow Horses would have done a way better job with the idea. Didn’t seem as smart as it wanted to be.

[Neon Ignition]

Solo: A Star Wars Story
First time seeing it since its cinema run and it remains a film that you want to enjoy more than you do, still far too dour looking and machine like

Gone With The Wind
Familiar thanks to pop culture but I'd never actually sat down and watched it before. The director has a great eye for a shot but man alive this wasn't the story I thought it was going to be, felt like I was watching one of the first movie takes on the villain being the lead. The last 15 minutes feel a bit heavy handed on trying to ram its point home, but overall it lives up as a strong film for its time.

[Finsbury Girl]

The Order - pretty average based on real life white supremacists. Jude Law and the main bad dude were ok I suppose. Maybe worth a watch if there's nothing else on or to have a perve at a topless Jude Law.

[QualityChimp]

Saw The Dark Knight (Via Prime) with my son as we work through Nolan's Batman trilogy.

I dunno, man. I like it, but it's all a bit of a downer, innit?

Main characters die, The Joker wins every time, the only chance for Gotham to make criminals go to jail is removed, Batman becomes a criminal, Batman crosses the line with Fox so he quits and so on.

you get to the end and everything seems worse than when it started.

There's no denying that Ledger's interpretation of The Joker is odious, terrifying and absolutely brilliant.

[wakka]

Watched a few this weekend just gone...

The Civil Dead

This is a quirky horror-comedy-hangout movie, with a sort of mumblecore feel to it in places. It follows a grumpy dour photographer who lives in a hipstery part of LA and isn't having much luck finding work. When he runs into an old friend who he'd really rather avoid, spooky things start to happen.

It's a film best enjoyed if that's all you know. It's really quite funny in places, and while it does suffer some baggy and uneven pacing, it's a fun low-key watch. Good Saturday afternoon sort of film.

Get Shorty

I'd never seen this one before! I love Elmore Leonard novels and I think this one does a great job of transcribing his snappy, stylish prose onto the screen.

John Travolta is brilliant. He just IS Chilli Palmer, and it kinda low key made me sad that his career flamed out so badly in more recent times.

This movie is a ton of easy watching fun, with a trademark Leonard twisty-turny story, and a nice fat vein of humour running through its centre. I really liked existing in its world for a couple of hours.

Miracle Mile

This is an unusual one. It starts off as a romance film, and then takes a real turn. If you haven't seen it/don't know of it, watch it knowing only that and don't read anything else about it.

If you have seen it, or read about it, or you're someone who doesn't want to devote 90 minutes to watching a movie on the basis of a bloke's comment on the internet, then my further thoughts are spoilered below...

->Open Spoiler<-

Okay so it's about World War 3 kicking off while a new couple are meeting for their first date, as you might know, with the bulk of the film focused on the protagonist trying to get them out of LA before the Russian nukes hit it.

I knew that going into it, so it wasn't a big shock for me, and I think the film would have been a lot more fun and effective if it had been.

With that said, it is a cool film. It's a bit of a Poundland version of Threads in some ways, without the absolutely brutal and devastating emotional depth of that film, but with that same theme of contrasting the ordinary beauty possible in our quotidian human lives with the unimaginably evil and destructive force of nuclear war.

I thought it was well executed and very much felt like one person's vision for what a nuclear war film should be, certainly not at all something designed by committee.

It does stretch credibility in places, it's kinda corny, and I think one of the subplots could have been cut, but overall it is a very cool film to watch, because it is very distinctive (if not actually unique, since Threads is kind of a similar concept in many ways).

[Nu-Eclipse]

Fire in Babylon (Stevan Riley, 2010)

Watched this last night. Feature documentary about the great West Indian men's cricket team of the 1970s and 1980s.

Admittedly not the most detailed insight into a team who absolutely set world cricket on fire between the late 1970s and mid 1990s, but it makes up for it with a lot of vibrant presentation to go with the storytelling as well as acknowledging the social and cultural impact of seeing an all-black team rise to prominence and then dominate a professional sporting field at the highest level within the context of the obvious racial climate of that era.

[CMcK]

Watched The Electric State the other night. It's more big budget mediocrity from Netflix. It kind of feels like they intended to make a family friendly film but got a bit sidetracked. The leads aren't exactly great and don't really have much material to work with. The big name voice talent for the bots was a waste of money too. I liked the alt 90s aesthetic though. Does make you wonder what the Russos are going to do when they get back to doing the Marvel stuff.

[Dogg Thang]

Miracle Mile

This is an unusual one. It starts off as a romance film, and then takes a real turn. If you haven't seen it/don't know of it, watch it knowing only that and don't read anything else about it.

I enjoyed this when I watched it recently. It's not a great film but I think it could have come close to being a great film. A good concept and, overall, well done but just never 100% lives up to the promise of the concept. But I enjoyed the journey.

[wakka]

Yeah I'd say that's about right. It's definitely one person's vision, which gives it a really unique flavour.

[Finsbury Girl]

Fire in Babylon (Stevan Riley, 2010)

Watched this last night. Feature documentary about the great West Indian men's cricket team of the 1970s and 1980s.

Admittedly not the most detailed insight into a team who absolutely set world cricket on fire between the late 1970s and mid 1990s, but it makes up for it with a lot of vibrant presentation to go with the storytelling as well as acknowledging the social and cultural impact of seeing an all-black team rise to prominence and then dominate a professional sporting field at the highest level within the context of the obvious racial climate of that era.

Yeah great doco. Some of my cricketing heroes from those teams of that era. Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Clive Lloyd, the mighty Viv Richards and my second favourite bowler of all time after DK, Malcom Marshall (RIP brother). Some of the greatest cricketers of all time. Played beautiful attacking cricket. Summer when the Windies toured was always super exciting for me. The battles between DK and Viv are legendary.



And how bloody good is this drive from big Viv

[Nu-Eclipse]

Finsbury Girl That Windies side of that era are one of my all-time favourite sports teams. Viv Richards pretty much my all-time favourite cricketer. I lament how far the West Indies have fallen in cricket terms when you look at them today.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Hope and Glory (John Boorman, 1987)

Watched this last night on Amazon Prime. A comedy-drama account of a London family's experience of the second World War, as seen through the eyes of a ten year old. Arguably Boorman's most personal and accomplished work (main character basically a fictionalised version of himself as he grew up in similar WWII circumstances).

Can't say I laughed much at the "comedy" side of things but I found it to have a certain likeable charm, if coming across a bit schmaltzy at times. The actual death/destruction isn't touched on much and I feel like that's why I find it to be schmaltzy but I can appreciate that this would pretty much be the result of focusing moreso on the children here.

On another note, the references to Boorman's other great works Excalibur and Deliverance did make me smile when they came up.

[Nu-Eclipse]

When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996)

Wasn't originally going to re-watch this tonight (originally saw it when it first came out way back) but had to when George Foreman's passing was announced earlier today.

30 years later, still a compelling insight into arguably the standout fight from Heavyweight Boxing's 1970's golden-age. Fantastic footage regarding both Foreman and Ali and the star-studded "Zaire '74" music concert that was used to promote the event. A real snapshot of the time that it covers. Sporting greatness and cultural significance combine for one of the all-time great sports documentaries IMO.

Rest easy up there, George.

[Neon Ignition]

Companion
It was fine, the whole 'fembot' thing has been heavily done and to be honest this doesn't bring anything new to the table with the likeability of the leads being what carries it.

Snow White
I could believe the theory that the final film is a different film spliced with a lot of expensive reshoots. It would certainly explain the expensive budget, the tonal shifts in photography and how it has characters that literally vanish at times. Similarly it would explain why the mirrors readings change meaning every time it appears. In the end it's like every single live action remake Disney makes, middling at best and forgotten as soon as you leave the cinema.