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

[QualityChimp]

Don't Look Now. I only got round to watching this for the very first time tonight. Safe to say I've never seen anything quite like it. It's hard to sum up my feelings because it stirred so many: feeling blown away, shocked, puzzled, creeped out, in awe and in need of some time to process the last two hours.

It's amazing, isn't it?

I still remember when I first saw it and it has stayed with me.

Not that much happens, really, but the way it shifts Venice from beautiful in the day to claustrophobic at night is really unnerving.
The way the two leads interact is brilliant, and their grief is almost like a third character in their relationship.

Dat ending tho!

[Atticus]

I love it when a film stays in your thoughts, and this one does for so many reasons. It's been swimming around in my head all morning. I honestly felt like I was watching a real couple in Sutherland and Christie. And the impending sense of doom is delivered so subtly but so effectively.

One genius aspect was the way I found myself constantly shifting my own perception of events ... in line with the two leads and their differing views. So clever.

Yes. It is amazing. I bought it on a bit of a whim (been on my radar for a long time + new 4k blu release) and I'm looking forward to watching some of the supplements.

[QualityChimp]

Sunshine (2007)
I really like this film and re-bought the Blu-Ray because I've forgotten which mate I let borrow it, but I've had a hankering to re-watch it for a while.

There's so much the film gets right, that it's a shame to focus on what it gets wrong.
You have to take a few leaps of faith to believe gold wouldn't melt near the sun or that one nuclear bomb would be enough to re-ignite the sun. Just enjoy the story.

What an amazing ensemble cast - Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada and Benedict Wong. They all lived together, did a zero-g flight and studied their characters' fields of interest before the film so that when filming began, they already knew what it was like to be stuck together.

I think the thing that always strikes me about the film is the isolation the crew must be feeling.
Danny Boyle got the crew to read Moondust, which interviews the astronauts that went to the moon and they talk about how isolated they felt. He also avoided cutting back to Earth and only had a few shots outside the ship.
As the film progresses and things get worse for the crew, that separation from outside help increases.

I love how Boyle kept feeling like "The Big Three" space films were always with him whilst filming - Solaris, 2001 and Alien.

The score and SFX is amazing too, emphasising the power of the sun as they get ever-closer to it.

I'm always unsure of the final third, which has a tone-shift, but it'd be interesting which other ways Boyle and Alex Garland would've written it.

Good, crisp BR disc with loads of extras and that engaging commentary by Boyle and a scientific viewpoint track from Brian Cox.

[Atticus]

I'm always unsure of the final third, which has a tone-shift,

I've only seen it the once but this is what I always remember. It caught me off guard. I think I may benefit from a repeat viewing, knowing this going in.

[QualityChimp]

I remember the end of The Abyss, where he takes that specialised deep-dive suit to greater depths and you felt the separation, but Sunshine, for me, took it to a new level.

It's interesting, because Boyle explains that films like this need a slow start, but still had to trim some of it down.
There were a lot of shots of the crew doing mundane stuff like dozing, reading a book (then going back to the start), gardening and playing chess, which was to be a recurring theme and a chess piece to symbolise the captain in later sequences.

->Open Spoiler<-

Boyle realised that viewers don't care after a character dies as the story moves on, so he removed references to the captain after his death.

[fallenangle]

Good to read somebody else enjoyed The Abyss too but never liked the original Solaris or the US remake, couldn't get on with Sunshine or 2001- ASO either and, horror of horrors, I'm not a big fan of Alien. I appreciate rather than love it but Aliens - absolutely brilliant, arguably the best sci-fi film yet made setting the template and a benchmark for countless lesser films, including its own sequels.

Never liked any Stars Wars film either - kids sci-fi. In the 70s my brother, two years younger than me was into it.

What floated my sci-fi film boat at that time was the first and second films in the original Planet of the Apes series, the unloved Logan's Run and Soylent Green. Much later it was Blade Runner, The Thing (better than Alien IMHO), the under-appreciated Enemy Mine, the Firefly spin off: Serenity and I must add The Fifth Element which, like Serenity bought a genuine sense of humour to the epic sci-fi film table.

I also love some much older sci-fi like the original The Day The Earth Stood Still (that Keanu Reeves remake should be buried in a pit of cow dung), The Time Machine, Forbidden Planet, Fantastic Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea..................................

[QualityChimp]

That's what's so ace about Sci-Fi, it's such a broad spectrum, there's something for everyone with a bit of imagination.

Back to the Future is Sci-Fi, but it's built on the premise of "what would you do if you could see your parents at the age you are now?" and went from there.

Sounds like you like a lot of grounded sci-fi stories, rather than space adventures?

With Sunshine, it's that solitude and desperation I found so different from other films.
Boyle made the cast watch Das Boot and go on a nuclear submarine to experience that sense of claustrophobia and isolation.

It sounds like you've seen a lot of the greats, but I'll think if there's something you might of missed that I can recommend.

[kryss]

Good to read somebody else enjoyed The Abyss too but never liked the original Solaris or the US remake, couldn't get on with Sunshine or 2001- ASO either and, horror of horrors, I'm not a big fan of Alien. I appreciate rather than love it but Aliens - absolutely brilliant, arguably the best sci-fi film yet made setting the template and a benchmark for countless lesser films, including its own sequels.

Never liked any Stars Wars film either - kids sci-fi. In the 70s my brother, two years younger than me was into it.

What floated my sci-fi film boat at that time was the first and second films in the original Planet of the Apes series, the unloved Logan's Run and Soylent Green. Much later it was Blade Runner, The Thing (better than Alien IMHO), the under-appreciated Enemy Mine, the Firefly spin off: Serenity and I must add The Fifth Element which, like Serenity bought a genuine sense of humour to the epic sci-fi film table.

I also love some much older sci-fi like the original The Day The Earth Stood Still (that Keanu Reeves remake should be buried in a pit of cow dung), The Time Machine, Forbidden Planet, Fantastic Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea..................................

You've probably seen Silent Running, Capricorn 1, Saturn 3, Ghost of Mars?

[fallenangle]

Silent Running and Dark Star I always group together because the first time I saw them was in the same film time slot on the BBC (I think it was Friday or Saturday late night) before they started hating real sci-fi. Saturn 3 I haven't seen in years (Kirk Douglas and Farah Fawcett - didn't need to even look that up) but enjoyed at the time. Ghost Of Mars I've watched regularly - it always seems to be on Freeview. Not a big favourite but watchable.

I really do not like sci-fi when it either totally stupid or the opposite, where it starts to disappear up its own po-faced, scientifically accurate, self-reverential, existential, philosophical behind. For me there is a sci-fi sweet spot, a happy balance of those elements.

Twice in the last week I've tried to watch Arrival and twice I've given up in boredom, like The Sphere, Event Horizon and a slew of others that have put me to sleep. Contact and Oblivion both teeter on the edge but I can at least watch them all the way through, the presence of Olga Kurylenko helps in the latter.

It is actually those 'smaller' sci-fi films, like Silent Running that I had not heard of before watching them for the first time which sometimes grabs me more, Source Code, Frequency and Deja Vu. I even enjoyed Time Cop with JCVD first time through but now .

[charlesr]

However, Doomsday is so bad and is scifi to miss. Just an endless chase scene so far. I'm not bothering with the rest.

[QualityChimp]

However, Doomsday is so bad and is scifi to miss. Just an endless chase scene so far. I'm not bothering with the rest.

So are Mad Max 2 and 4, but they're amazing.

After Dog Soldiers and The Descent, I was a big fan of Neil Marshall, but was gutted when Doomsday got universally panned and I've not paid attention to his career since.

Looks like he directed an episode of Westworld, Timeless and Lost in Space, but his biggest thing recently was the Hellboy reboot.

It sounds like you've seen a lot of stuff, Fallenangle, so struggling to think of something you might not have seen.
Love how you're happier with smaller films. Same here, I tend to enjoy the small-scale of Terminator 1, rather than the bombast of 2 these days.

Phase IV, The Signal, Primer, Scanners, Dog Soldiers, Quatermass and the Pit, Lifeforce, Moon, John Dies at the End, Monsters, Safety Not Guaranteed, Coherence, It Follows, Ex Machina, Dark City, Time Crimes, The One I Love, The Black Hole, Eternal Sunshine, Forbidden Planet, The Last Days on Mars, Moontrap, Waxwork II, The Brother from Another Planet, A Boy and His Dog, The Quiet Earth, Europa Report, THX 1138, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (all versions), Scanners, Cube and Upgrade.

Gotta be something in there you've not seen!

[JazzFunk]

M. Night Shyamalan's THE VISIT. I tend to look forward to watching his films because they're usually weird and often contain strange plot twists.

Alas, not his best...even though it does adhere to said formula. It's half decent...it's quite unsettling, beautifully shot with some lovely snowy scenes and kinda icky at points. But it then has THE most nauseating child character I've probably ever had to gip through, a little crap who constantly 'raps' without any semblance of rhythm (it's cringey, oh yusss) and looks EXACTLY like 1986 Jonathan Ross but with his current hairline. He's sickening, ruins the bleedin' film tbh. WHY???!!!!!!!

But I digress. Not great. But still quirky. I liked it just enough. More a SIGNS than an UNBREAKABLE, tho.

[Atticus]

I've not seen many of M Night's films but I thought Signs was brilliant.

[JazzFunk]

If you thought Signs was brilliant then multiply your enjoyment for the others by at least four...you're in for a treat!!!!!

I liked Signs, too. But I liked The Village (watch it) better and I can't remember how many times I've raved about Unbreakable on here in the past.

Deffo a groovy director in my eyes.

[Atticus]

They're three of the four I've seen and I enjoyed them all ... unlike the last one I saw: The Lady In The Water. Oof ... that was enough for me.