What movie did you watch today?

[drizzle]

Purple Rain - Saw the screening last night, it was dope. Never actually seen this even though I've heard all these songs a million times over. Undeniable music and style of course, but it's kinda fucked up that this movie is basically about 3 very talented musicians treating women like shit for absolutely no reason. Also I'm probably a piece of shit for this but Morris Day was by far my favorite character.

[Spartan]

Finally caught up with The Witch.

[drizzle]

oh hows the 2000ad doc

[Spartan]

Really good. Does not hold back at all. Heard a lot about the legendary Pat Mills - dude did not disappoint.

[drizzle]

Triple 9 - Surprisingly ass. It's not ballsout terrible terrible, more like very mediocre, but considerting what it could've been with that cast it's ass. Over-convoluted plot that moves in dumb ways, tons of great actors wasted on cartoonish poorly developed characters. The very stylish look of it and few legitimately tense action scenes don't do enough to cover for the deficiencies. This isn't even Mann-light, it's 'Affleck's The Town'-light. Really a shame, I'm starting to feel like Hillcoat is a dud that blew his load with The Proposition.

Man Of Steel - Never actually bothered with this before but wanted to before subjecting myself to an obligatory masochistic go at BvS. Snyder obviously misses the point of Superman entirely, and that automatically trumps everything else, but I got to say - his inexplicable revision of the story into some misguided Space Opera thing is decently executed. In some far fetched alternate reality where Superman is somehow just another cape and NOT the most iconic superhero of all time with a 100 years of cultural history, this would just be another dumb but passably fun comic book movie.

Jungle Book - Tons of fun for what it is. The kid himself gets almost lost in all the cgi, but the animals are great (almost too good, a few uncanny valley moments do creep up). Murray as the bear and Stringer as the Tiger really make it.

[Tommy Bunz]

I liked Triple 9 when i saw it in theaters but have liked it less and less the farther away from watching it I get.
The super-realistic room-clearing scene shot like a long take is really really awesome though.

[Kace]

Suburra (2016) - This is a modern Italian mobclassic that sits nicely next to the Gomorra tv-series. The major drawback is how ambitious the plot is relative to the runningtime. Apparently Netflix has ordered a tv-show to be made using the setting and characters of the film. Normally I would avoid something like that but the series is being filmed in Italian by the same team who made the film, so everything points towards the series being worth anticipating. Meanwhile this is a really enjoyable movie.

Would you say Suburra is as good as Gomorra the series?

[Spartan]

May's watch list partially consisted of a pretentious two hour cologne ad with Christian Bale; Charlotte Gainsbourg sucking off a nonce; and the further self-destructive adventures of Robert De Niro.

[Career Over Like Mike(NJJ)]

Late pass, but I'm glad to see Party Sparty awarded Fright Night 5 stars.

[Spartan]

[Career Over Like Mike(NJJ)]

[Tommy Bunz]

last month and a half, lots of rewatches

[Ramen]

Watched Jungle Book the other day, shit was pretty fun. CGI was unreal.

Also my first experience watching a movie in a "luxury" theater. A gift and a curse.

[drizzle]

Midnight Special + The Witch -

Watched both in one night and they made for a great double feature of similar themes/film making modes. Both are staged on small scale but with a lot of nuance, and are way more interested in how people react to super natural events than in the supernatural itself. Both are about family units in crisis (although MS is about a family forming while W is about one falling apart). Both are driven by some really strong acting and a focused directors who have distinct styles. Both could use a deeper look at their respective underlying supernatural mythologies but are satisfying enough without it. The Witch is a very dope and detailed period piece on top of all that too (you'll probably need to watch with subtitles to get the most out of the dialogue).

Night Manager - Slick and entertaining but kinda shallow compared to the best Le Carre adaptations. Casting is way above station for a mini series and that helps, Hiddleston is way too famous for this shit now but doesn't mail it in. You could do a lot worse for a bingewatch, but it's nothing must-see.

Kamikaze '89 - Dystopian camp, sitting firmly on both the arthouse and the MST3K sides of the fence. Ticks on a lot of the similar shit as Bladerunner, Brazil, World On A Wire and all the other dystopian faves but doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously and ends up with a pretty unique feel. Probably the most awesomely batshit thing I've seen in years, even though it's about 20 mins longer than it needs to be. Worth watching just for Fassbinder mugging and the insanity of the style/art direction.



Final Master - New jawnt written/directed/choreographed by the guy who wrote Wai Kar Wai's Grandmaster. This dude is on his way to becoming a martial arts auteur in his own right, he did the well regarded but kinda underbaked Sword Identity a few years ago. He has a really good hand at elevating the genre and twisting conventions, this might be the first kung fu movie that purposefully avoids training sequences but has genuinely witty deadpan dialogue. The plot has too much going on but the characters are unusual and the movie works hard to flesh them out and make them resonant. And the most important part, the fights are great and there's enough of them. The choreography is very realistic and grounded but also very complex, staged in a way that aims to say something about the characters and not just have action for the fuck of it. So it's really more of a movie about fighters than a movie about fights. Really fucking loved it.

[Spartan]

File Alexandros Avranas' Miss Violence as a very good film, but I never ever want to watch again. Ever.

[drizzle]

Was London Has Fallen worth it as dumb fun? I remember enjoying the first one in passing but not actually anything about it.

[Spartan]

More than worth it.

[LilLeftBrain]

been chilling out on the movies, but 10 clovers and where to invade next were def the fav's of the last two months

[drizzle]

Blackhat - heard from a few pro-Mann pundits that this was unfairly shitted on ... that's about 1/3 true. It's a gorgeous movie and does have a few good moments, but not much more. Flat uninteresting characters, wooden acting, a lot of plot buildup for a laughably boring reveal (the big conspiracy is about.... tin prices... SERIOUSLY, tin prices). Mann's gift for making pulpy genre conventions feel profound is completely absent. I think the dude just wanted to go to China and play with cool cameras and just kinda winged the rest.

In The Mouth Of Madness - I haven't seen this in ages and it was definitely before I was up on Lovecraft and the movie's reputation was re-evaluated, so re-discovering this was a real treat. Pretty much everything you could reasonably want in a Lovecraft adaptation that doesn't involve going big-CGI to show Cthulu Godzilla-style.

[drizzle]

Legend Of Tarzan - Went in with low expectations, mostly to feed childhood nostalgia for being raised on old b/w Tarzan joints, but this turned out to be a surprisingly dope adventure movie. Somebody clearly had Indiana Jones in mind when making this, which is the perfect approach for it. It could've used a bit more Tarzan hanging with animals, and despite some herculean and generally successful efforts to make the movie woke the climax still feels a bit 'white savior-ish', but the net sum feels very positive. I think I enjoyed it more than any other summer movie this year aside from Civil War.

[ric]

Our Kind of Traitor

some dope shit. firstly the visual aspect is beautiful. the rest is sweet and well executed. perhaps but probably not a movie to purchase. skaarsgard of course dominates. as if there was a question. some of it is shoulder shrugging avg but nothing really marrs the movie and there is a bunch of sweet shit here for the espionage enthusiast. not a perfect movie but worth the price of admission if you are in the mood.

Captain Fantastic

nice movie. I related because I have similar notions of child rearing. the writing and acting have some nice subtleties. some really quality kid acting here. the story is and isn't a bit predictable.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Hush (2016) - Decent timewaster homeinvasionfilm. I didn't think the killer was casted well.

What We Become (2016) - Well accomplished Danish zombiefilm which works best when it starts out as an infection thriller.

The Lobster (2016) - I thought this was really dull and not funny. Was really struggling to pay attention.

Cash Only (2016) - Dope indie about an Albanian-American landlord who ends up in deep trouble with local mafia. Not very unlike the French recent film Dealer.

How To Be A Player (1997) - Funny as 90's kitsch but an awful film in truth.

[ric]

Star Trek Beyond

pretty sweet. some sweet shit most avg eh shit.
not really pleased. visually very cool at some points. I'm like eh. they abandoned a bunch of the shit that made the first two remakes as sweet as they were and instead delved into the buddy movie garbage that makes the original movies and shows so whatever the fuck ever

[Ramen]

The Imitation Game - was thinking it was something different when it was being explained to me, pretty decent tho. wanted to see more about the computer and cryptanalysis, but I guess that would have been boring.

The Suspect - Pretty dope korean revenge action flick. guy's family dies, guy gets framed, guy kicks everyone's ass.

[ric]

the new Bourne

dope. will cop when it comes out. this movie really rewards the audience with some awesome shit. I'm not even a big fan of car chases but these are some of the best in the Bourne series which is saying something. I love that they manage to keep the series tightly woven, doesn't stray from its core, the core moves, but they keep it relatable and you care about what's happening and the characters (or at least bourne)

[darkwingduck]

oops. wrong thread.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

General Idi Amin (1974) - Compelling docu about one of the most infamous dictators ever. He was a truly insane man with a completely baseless conviction of his own importance. The Mindbender of tyrants. Also worth watching for great scenes of Uganda in the 70's.

Going Places (1974) - The French take on Easy Rider. Really sleazy and gloriously un-PC. Not a great movie but an interesting product of its time.

Body Heat (1981) - Sweaty film which made me think about the erotic thriller and why a film is categorized as such instead of neo-noir. I'm not entirely sure how it would be marked.

Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart (2014) - Based on a true story of a French cop who lived a double-life as a serialkiller chasing himself. Could have been great but it wasn't really. Decent thriller though.

Disorder (2016) - My personal favorite Schoenaerts stars in this film about a veteran with PTSD who works as a bodyguard for a wealthy arab businessman's family. Part home-invasion thriller too. It wasn't as good as I had hoped but not bad either.

Clinton Cash (2016) - Essential documentary for anyone who plans to vote in the November election. Makes you seriously question how Hillary could be considered "the lesser of two evils". Shes is crooked as hell. Lock her up!

The Demons (2016) - French-Canadian guy made a Haneke-like film about a young boy. Its really clever and layered but I couldnt make myself care.

Love & Peace (2016) - Sion Sono is making 00's Miike look like a lazy director by comparison. This means he has been a bit hit and miss for some but this seems to have pleased all of his fans, me included. Its like a weirdo Disney-flick with a failed rockstar who works in an office and befriends a turtle who helps his career after its flushed down the toilet and goes to a sort of lost&found in the sewers.

Weiner (2016) - Perhaps the best political documentary of all time. I can't believe this film exists. The Anthony Weiner scandal itself and the drama surrounding it is not very interesting in itself, at least to me. But this is a really fascinating character-study of him as a person. Can't recommend it highly enough. I could imagine Employee getting a massive rage-boner from this (nh).

[Spartan]

Road Games (2015)
Found this to be a really weak and an ineffective throwback to British psychological thrillers of the sixties and seventies. The majority of the film's running time consisted of it mistaking atmospheric tension with boredom. Nothing really happened until the last third of the film - that's where it comedically fell apart. The predictable twist which was pathetically telegraphed early on was perhaps its biggest failure. The performances were notably bad; Barbara Crampton might very well be GILF status, but she can't act for shit. Film had a cool soundtrack, though.

A Hologram for the King (2016)
Not read the book, nor would I ever care to. A mediocre film about a middling Tom Hanks having some sort of mid-life crisis in the middle east. Kind of went south once most of the loose ends were hastily tied up and the film concentrated on Hanks' love interest. Not gonna lie, I was foolishly expecting the type of ending you would find on LiveLeak instead of a bird having a swim without her burkini.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)
The action was golden whenever it occurred, but this was far too long and dragged heavily. Along with the interchangeable quips in dialogue, I really hope the writers lay off any more Winter Soldier storylines as the central focus in future films, because it kind of reached breaking point for me here.

[drizzle]

Elysium - like 3 years late on this, thought it was just fine. Confirms my suspicions that Bloomkamp is better at showing shooting than thinking of smart reasons to show shooting. Hopefully he realizes that his place in the grand scheme of things is closer to 'Aliens' than to 'Alien' while making his Alien movie.

Blood Father - Gibson finally steps into the 'old man badass' arena. Not as much blood in this thing as the title/trailer would suggest, but it's a very nice grubby little thriller elevated by Gibson nailing the shit out of his role (dude seems to be channeling his irl problems in a few scenes and it's great) and some really nice brief supporting turns. In a world where 'middle class' genre movies with good actors are pretty much dying out, it's nice that shit like this even exists.

[Spartan]

The Conjuring 2 (2016)
About twenty minutes too long, with a scattering of unintentional comedy here and there, yet still an absorbing movie. Undoubtedly, it's because it's based on the fascinating Enfield Poltergeist legend located near me. Marilyn Manson nun was obviously shoe-horned in to play out as a far more appealing supernatural villain than a ghostly old cockney, but it's all forgiven when a mainstream horror film delivers as much entertainment as this.

Estranged (2015)
Demented drama to come out of nowhere. Turned out to be a nice little gem. James Cosmo was great in this.

The Silenced (2015)
Found it a real struggle to watch this film all the way through. You'd think something along the lines of Weapon X and The Fury would be fantastic, but other than looking pretty, this film was incredibly soporific.