The Films You Watched Thread V: Dead Men Watch No Movies

[Atticus]

Godzilla Raids Again - the sequel to the first film is more light-hearted and honestly a bit more fun. There's some top notch monster v monster action with Anguirus on the scene ... a beast with almost James Finlayson-like characteristics and reactions to what's going on Loved the stories with the pilots and characters around them, and the city miniatures were amazing. Perfect for a Sunday morning.

[fuse]

I was not excited to watch How to Build a Girl, and worst fears were confirmed very quickly. I got that it is supposed to be about female empowerment and the ability to change - amazingly, I even got this before the patronising, fourth wall-breaking closing remarks - but it is horrible, exaggerated, unrealistic nonsense. That an industry such as music journalism should be full of chauvinist arseholes is so obvious it barely needs saying, but throwing a character without a trace of integrity (but look - she reads Plath! Marx! etc) into it does not paint anyone in a great light, no matter how great an epiphany is had in the last 10 minutes.

[charlesr]

Deep Blue Sea - Nonsense shark thing. I've seen it before but it's pretty funny. I had no idea there were so many bad shark movies on Amazon. Basically all films for the next week or two are sorted.

[teddymeow]

Just watched Big on Disney+. It's one of my absolute faves so I've been really excited about showing it to the kids.

They really liked it. Well, Harry did.

[Atticus]

The Game - Not sure how this one went under the radar coming out between Seven and Fight Club but I just never saw it. FF lots of years and it turned out to be a massive treat last night. This is my kind of film. It pushes and pushes and keeps going beyond. Forget plausibility, you're watching a piece of entertainment. Might be a rare watch again with commentary this one. Absolutely loved it. Glad I took a punt on the limited edition too ... it's basically a hardback book with a couple of discs in it.

[Dogg Thang]

I watched Bumblebee again because my kids hadn't seen it. Really enjoyed it the second time around but it's very much in spite of there being Transformers in it rather than because of it. I really like the characters in this film. I'd happily watch a sequel about them even without giant robots.

[randombs]

Spot on. The Bay TF films put boring humans front and centre and also took the biscuit with the Transformers themselves.

Bumblebee’s humans are interesting in their own right. And if you're watching it for the Transformers, these ones are chunky and true to the cartoons. There’s something for everyone.

[wakka]

A couple of quick ones:

Hail, Caesar!

Weak effort by the Coens. It's very Coen-y, but not in any way that's particularly compelling. It concerns the making of an epic in Golden Age Hollywood, a sort of Last Temptation of Christ type thing, and all takes place inside 24 hours.

The centre of the film is Josh Brolin's studio manager, who rushes around from place to place putting out fires. There's also Clooney's John Wayne-esque elder statesman film star, a guy playing an up and comer film star who's great with stunts but can't act, and some other odds and ends like Tilda Swinton playing identical twin gossip columnists.

It's a grab bag of stories, none of which coalesce in a particularly satisfying way. There are some self-indulgent musical numbers, a twist which is a bit of a nothing, and some gags which don't really land.

Not great. Better than a poke in the eye. But only just.


A Lonely Place

Noir melodrama from 1950 with Bogart. The back of the Criterion box describes it as 'one of the best films of the 1950s'. It is not.

It's OK. It's about this guy who's a famous screenwriter - Bogart - and kind of a grump, and who invites this coat check girl at his local bar back to his place to describe to him the plot of a novel he's supposed to be writing the adaptation of, but can't be bothered to read.

Later that night she's murdered by persons unknown. In parallel, Bogart starts an affair with a woman in his apartment building. The film rests on the tension of whether he not he did the murder at the start, and how this affects his relationship with the woman.

There are two problems with the film. One is that it never fully gets going. Just at the midpoint, when we should be hitting third or fourth gear, it slips back into a melodramatic second. The second is that there are aspects of the woman character's former life that are alluded to but never fully expanded upon, leaving her story underdeveloped.

All in all - not bad, but not great. A curiosity watch.

[Atticus]

Gone Girl - Another Fincher gem that went under the radar (possibly due to the forgettable title). This one is on Netflix and like The Game it was a nice surprise ... a 2hr30min film that I was glued to very quickly. To say any more might be saying too much. Recommended.

[QualityChimp]

The Game

I've been meaning to rewatch this since Game Night! Very different films, though!

So, I saw TENET at the cinema.

Yes, the cinema.

They were really good. Social distancing, hand gel at the door, protective screens for the staff, masks on everyone, 2 seat gap between bookings and I think it's every other row too. Wasn't an issue as we saw the earliest showing and there was 1 other person in there!

With that out of the way, let's talk about the film. It was brilliant and I really enjoyed it.
Typical Nolan in so many ways, both good and bad.
Sound levels were awful with the atmospheric Zimmer score dominating the vocal track, especially if people were wearing a mask.
There's a lot of McGuffin going on and if you dwell on it too much, it'll fall apart, but if you've had fun, why overthink it?

I think the less you know about it, the better, so I won't talk specifics, but it was definitely a cinema film, with lots of amazing set pieces blasting your eyes and lugholes.

I would see it again, in fact, it almost begs for a rewatch to unravel its complexities, but I'd probably watch with subtitles on.

[Atticus]

I've been meaning to rewatch this since Game Night! Very different films, though!

I've been trying to get Game Night into the schedule for a while but my wife finds the word 'game' off-putting.

[QualityChimp]

I've been trying to get Game Night into the schedule for a while but my wife finds the word 'game' off-putting.

Oh mate, it's a brilliant date night movie, she'll love it.
It's really well done and really ambitious for a small film with inventive tilt-shift shots to make it look like their house is on a game board and a brilliant "one-take" chase sequence that I think you'll love.
There are a lot of laughs on the way, though, and some good characters.

[QualityChimp]

Oh I also saw both of the Jumanji sequels at the weekend with the kids.
I thought Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was better and I proper belly laughed at some bits.
The adult cast were great, playing their characters as if inhabited by the school kids, and making fun of their looks.
Jack Black was particularly great, but they all have great lines.

Jumanji: The Next Level suffered from over-familiarity watching them both close together, but a couple of comedy twists to the original manage to make it still funny. They probably upped the action a bit more in this one, with some great moments.

They're both well-worth seeing, especially with kids (although the penis jokes got a "I'll tell you when you're older"), but there are loads of funny videogame tropes we will all relate to.

[randombs]

I enjoyed the first one. It was a load of silly fun. I liked when Jack Black's stats popped up - Weaknesses: Strength


I haven't seen the sequel yet.

I watched the live-action Lion King a few weeks ago. Initially I thought it was dull compared to the original, with James Earl Jones in particular sounding like he was phoning it in. I paused it for a while and read a review in the meantime while searching about how much was CGI(answer: all of it). The reviewer felt the realistic CGI wouldn't work with the same lines as the original, which I felt were quite dramatic/pantomimey in comparison. That made sense, considering how they animated the characters - all wide-eyed and jazz hands. When I resumed the film, I tried looking at it objectively and started to enjoy it on its own merits. I ended up really liking it

After all that seriousness, and still in a jungle mood, I watched George of the Jungle for the first time! That was great fun.

I was recently watching some YouTube videos about Joker which made me want to watch The Dark Knight, so I did. Great stuff. Then I watched The Dark Knight Rises, and it was far better than I remember(this was my second time). I do wish there was an alternative soundtrack with Bane's voice in the original trailer.

Speaking of which, I'm really missing special features when streaming films. I'd love it if even one of the streaming services offered at least some extras. YouTube has a bunch, but it's not the same!

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, the "smouldering" cracked me up. In the sequel, The Rock smoulders at the wrong times to comedy effect.

You've reminded me I saw the live-action remake of Aladdin (well about 80% of it) and I really enjoyed it!
I thought "You ain't never had a friend like me" was brilliant.

I can't believe how much I've watched, like some kind of Neon Ignition or something.