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

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    Originally posted by Blobcat View Post
    Disney/ Pixar's Coco - First time seeing it, its just wonderful.
    The Book of Life is better but we did enjoy Coco.

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      1917
      I'm not sure much was gained by the style of constant camera shot used because it makes time lapses come across poorly. Things like it turning from night to day in 6 seconds and it's not even done using a time lapse effect to make it obvious, it just changes. Or searching an abandoned area and suddenly 30 soldiers appear out of nowhere before travelling to the next town which is apparently only 200ft down the road. It's an odd choice because events happen in real time even though it's blatant that narratively they aren't making it look wrong all the time. Despite this and the obviousness of the plotting it was still a fun watch, not worth the praise it got perhaps but still a decent overall film.

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        The Babadook - Not really what I was expecting. It was kind of creepy at times but the horror came from the cold, bleak vibe throughout. Can't say I enjoyed personally it but it's easy to admire as a well made film.

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          John Wick 3 - I actually didn't like it much at all. Really disappointing and surprising really as I loved 1 & enjoyed 2. 3 had no real premise or reason to exist. Some of the action was ok, I don't think it came anywhere near the highs of #1 in terms of choreography or excitement.

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            Just watched Sorcerer, superb film! Loved every second.

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              ^is that the film with the Tangerine Dream score that I've had on CD for yonks, even if I've never actually seen the movie?

              Last night, I watched Vin Diesel's amazing turn as THE LAST WITCH HUNTER. Now, I find Diesel amusingly odd, I like watching Elijah Wood as he's got a great face for playing little schidts and here we also have Michael Caine in yet another butler-type role...but this was CACK.

              I'm glad I finally watched it but it was so full of Resi/Gears-style CGI tendril-horrors that I thought the whole thing seemed like a collection of cutscenes from games I really can't be arsed playing.

              Never got chance to slow down and take in the story as you're constantly getting bombarded with CGI insects and flashbacks to Vin Diesel with a ridiculous Viking beard n' barnet combo. It's horrendous.

              Ruuuuuuuuuuuuh. Bish.

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                Originally posted by JazzFunk View Post
                ^is that the film with the Tangerine Dream score that I've had on CD for yonks, even if I've never actually seen the movie?

                Last night, I watched Vin Diesel's amazing turn as THE LAST WITCH HUNTER. Now, I find Diesel amusingly odd, I like watching Elijah Wood as he's got a great face for playing little schidts and here we also have Michael Caine in yet another butler-type role...but this was CACK.

                I'm glad I finally watched it but it was so full of Resi/Gears-style CGI tendril-horrors that I thought the whole thing seemed like a collection of cutscenes from games I really can't be arsed playing.

                Never got chance to slow down and take in the story as you're constantly getting bombarded with CGI insects and flashbacks to Vin Diesel with a ridiculous Viking beard n' barnet combo. It's horrendous.

                Ruuuuuuuuuuuuh. Bish.
                That’s the one, make sure to watch it! It was superb!!

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                  Yeah, I will mate! That and THIEF. And now time to dig out my TD CDs, they are amazing and it's been a loooooong time since I had a chillout sesh to their music.

                  All it took was seeing RISKY BUSINESS on telly in 1988, my brain was never the same since I heard their choonz, almost heightened. Jolly good stuff, gonna scare myself listening to ALPHA CENTAURI and ZEIT in a bit, just dug em out!

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                    Sorcerer looks like a banger, I'm going to check that out.

                    Recently I've watched Sicario, Three Billboards, The Fourth Man, Halloween (2018), and Rounders.

                    Brief impressions...

                    Sicario

                    Really enjoyed this, it's a very solid action thriller. The story is fairly hackneyed, but the cinematography (Roger Deakins) is superb, the acting strong, and it's a very satisfying, compelling watch. It's very well paced - you're kept fairly disorientated as to quite what's happening for the first third or so, which works well, then there's a reveal which sets the course for the next two acts.

                    It really reminded me of Call of Duty, especially one particular action sequence near the end which used a first person POV and night vision. Even the music is very CoD - some of the orchestral stuff reminded me of the dramatic music that plays on the lobby screen of the newest Modern Warfare. Really made me think that a CoD game which focuses on CIA black ops units in guerilla warfare with Mexican cartels would make for a great entry.

                    A special mention must go to the 4K HDR presentation on UHD Blu. I've watched a handful of UHD discs now, and this is easily the standout. If you want a disc to demo the capabilities of a new 4K TV to yourself, this is it. Eye popping at times.

                    Three Billboards

                    Little bit of a mixed bag. Interesting, original story that was relatively unpredictable, excellent acting, top notch production values, and managed to be sensitive without veering into mawkishness. But for a film that sets out its stall as a relatively realist drama, there were a few bits which lacked credibility:


                    When she blows up the police station, and the investigation amounts to the new police chief asking if she was there, giving her the side-eye, and leaving it at that. She blew up a bloody police station!



                    It's a really enjoyable watch, that confidently glides from scenes which are blackly comic to ones that feel genuinely menacing. But it's not a film that stands up to tremendously close scrutiny.

                    The Fourth Man

                    I'm a massive fan of Paul Verhoeven's Hollywood stuff, but I'm ashamed to say I've never watched his earlier Dutch films. So, I decided to start here.

                    It's a psychological horror film based on a novel, about a critically lauded but financially unsuccessful novelist who travels from Amsterdam to a small town to give a talk to a Rotary Society type local organisation. Throughout, he's plagued by dark, bloody visions in dream sequences of bizarre gore. At the talk he meets a woman who invites him back to her house, where they sleep together. He then starts living with her, but begins to suspect all is not right with her, and she may have some dark secrets.

                    Fun, sleazy, pulpy, arthousey - if you like this sort of slightly odd stuff, it's a great watch. The first half is a mite slow, but it's an enjoyable watch, even though you can kinda see where it's going fairly early on (and even though about 50% of the film seems to be dream sequence at one point, and it does go a bit overkill).

                    It also has the requisite number of naked penises, fannies, boobs, etc, which all Paul Verhoeven films must have. Where else can you see the protagonist...


                    have a major, plot shifting epiphany while getting a blowjob off another bloke in a graveyard. Oh, Paul!



                    Halloween (2018)

                    I like what they did with this. I've seen the original many times, and I've also seen Season of the Witch quite a few times (which obviously is irrelevant to Michael Myers' story), but I've not seen any of the others. So I don't know if this sticks to the stacks of lore they've presumably built up in all those many films, but for me this worked really well as a direct follow-up narratively to the very first entry.

                    I liked that it wasn't a remake, and I liked that it stuck pretty closely to slasher convention rather than reinventing the wheel. It's not a film that will change your life, but if you like Halloween, this is a very competent follow-up with most of what you could want. One criticism I do have is that there are a few too many characters - we follow two early on who don't really do much of not except act as a device for Michael to

                    get his mask back

                    , and that means we don't get to spend as much time as we perhaps might otherwise with everyone else. Some of the spooky sequences aren't quite as tense as they could be either, with the exception of one

                    (the bit with the fat kid who tries to kiss the Final Girl)

                    which I found really effective.

                    This was another UHD disc. It looked nice, but the main effect of the HDR implementation seemed to be to blind me with the flashing police lights, which was a bit, er, annoying.

                    Rounders

                    No idea why it took me so long to watch this, I love this sort of thing. It's a 90s joint about a poker player/law student in New York (Matt Damon), and a fellow card shark and friend (Edward Norton).

                    Matt Damon's trying to keep his nascent law career going, but his true passion lies in grinding it out in underground card rooms, where's determined to make a stack of chips big enough to go to Vegas and take a shot at the World Championships. Meanwhile loose canon Norton has just come out of jail, and has debts to various mobsters to pay off. They both need money, and poker's the way to get it. There's also a girl involved, Damon's girlfriend, who disapproves of poker and makes him promise not to play.

                    Really loved this. It had 'spec script' written all over it - just a cool idea for a cool story which some guys wrote and which actually got made, and made well. It's not going to blow your socks off as the best film ever made, but it's a fun watch with some terrific dialogue and a story which manages to remain relatively unpredictable. I loved the ending, too. It's about poker, but it's also about self-actualisation, which I thought was cool.

                    Fake edit: OK, that wasn't that brief. If you read all of it, thanks!
                    Last edited by wakka; 16-05-2020, 16:48.

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                      I really liked Halloween 2018. Watched it in a double-bill with the 1978 film last year and loved it.

                      Originally posted by wakka View Post
                      A special mention must go to the 4K HDR presentation on UHD Blu. I've watched a handful of UHD discs now, and this is easily the standout. If you want a disc to demo the capabilities of a new 4K TV to yourself, this is it. Eye popping at times.
                      Yeah, Sicario is a real stunner of a UHD release. Sound is outstanding too. Not a bad film either

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                        Yeah, the sound is amazing on Sicario.

                        Also watched The Mule the other night. This is pretty typical late era Eastwood stuff. It really reminded me of Gran Torino, and when I was Googling around the film afterwards, I found out it's by the same screenwriter, which makes sense.

                        It's a character piece about Earl Stone, a 90 year old professional flower grower whose business is bust, home is in foreclosure, and whose family won't speak to him. He ends up taking a job muling drugs cross country in his pick-up for a Mexican cartel, learns a little about life and love on the way, etc. But Bradley Cooper's DEA agent is closing in.

                        Despite its focus on probably the world's most violent and sadistic industry, this is a very gentle film. Earl is very well drawn as a character, and the film moves at a leisurely pace, much like Earl's cross-country road trips - a steady lick, but certainly never exceeding the speed limit. The script ranges from funny and sharp (the DEA agents' banter) to really quite weak (there is one exchange in particular between Earl and his cartel handler, about 2/3s in, which does not remotely have the ring of truth considering their relationship at that point).

                        You could find worse ways to spend two hours, but don't expect to be gripped so much as gently handled.

                        EDIT: Must add though, Eastwood is 89 years old and still directing and starring in his own movies. That is simply awesome.
                        Last edited by wakka; 18-05-2020, 09:26.

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                          Jaws
                          We finally began working on the 74-75 era movies and will in total be viewing 23 of them with this being the first. The Mayor is still pandemic levels dumb but the film is still a great watch.

                          Parasite
                          I didn't mind it but it's definitely yet another praised movie to put on the overrated pile.

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                            Gonna be watching THE MATRIX on Blu later on, only seen it once and must be twenty years back.

                            Am stoked for it, thought it was awesome first time around and I remember sod-all about it, bar the ending. Would like to watch the sequels after and have them make more sense, this time around.

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                              Skip the sequels mate. They’re a load of pretentious pseudo religious waffle.

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                                I've seen em, prob about twelve years back. I thought they were really ****. Although there might be some funky imagery to enjoy in HD?

                                I watched them both in widescreen on a 14" CRT from about eight feet away when I saw them last time and my specs shrink everything by about 10%!

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