What movie did you watch today?

[drizzle]

You Were Never Really Here - Loved it. For about 95% of the running time I thought it was just another solid artsy take on pulp, which would've been fine too, but the last few minutes sold me on it as a genuine character study that really tries to explore the protagonist's mindset and that elevated it to something better imo. Le Samourai came to mind as much as Taken, not just because this movie mines the same trope but also because both are about systems of control as a way to check against mental disorders and what happens when those systems break. Good Time came to mind too, just because it's a recent movie with a similar style of showing street level NY. The lack of exposition didn't bother me too much, there were a few moments where I wanted to know more but I appreciate the director's effort to show PTSD in a way that Joe himself would experience it, via panic attacks and hallucinations. Pausing to explain them further might've fucked with the momentum too. Phoenix is absolutely incredible in this, the score is fantastic too (another similarity to Good Time there.)

There was a Q&A with Lynne Ramsey after the screening and she said she was really taken with the propulsive quality of the book this is based on and was always curious about making a gritty hardboiled thriller, but claims to have never seen Taken, which is totally believable.

[Spartan]

Dark Waters (1993)
Bonkers Lovecraftian style horror. Loved how this effectively switched from a contemporary setting to an almost medieval period once it took you to the remote island. Reminded me of Stuart Gordon's and Clive Barker's films since this takes you through a similar type rabbit hole from reality to fantasy. It's a surreal viewing experience, but a rewarding one if you stick with it. Personally, I don't think it's this long-lost unearthed classic horror film, but it's a very good movie and one I would recommend.

Prime Evil (1989)
Not sure how you can fuck up a film about devil worshippers sacrificing their grand kids for immortality, but this was a poor movie from the offset. Usually try to find something positive to say about many inept movies, but this really had nothing going for it, even in terms of kitsch value.

Count Dracula's Great Love (1973)
The writing was all over the place, and the second half feels like it was taken from an almost different script, but I really liked this attempt at a Hammer style vampire flick from Spain. Stocky, Paul Naschy does his usual hammy routine of portraying a classic villain and turning them into a sympathetic anti-hero of sorts. Won't pretend to have seen all his movies, but of the dozen or so i have seen, this is definitely one of the better ones.

[blastmaster]

The Quiet Place. Good, not great and certainly not worth the hype. While Get Out was new and fresh and deserved to be lauded as such, this felt like a horror film made by someone who looks down on genre films. It was good though. Just not amazed.

[drizzle]

Death Of Stalin - A hard one to rate, the movie has tons of very witty writing and great comic acting but feels slight because it mostly just uses the weighty historical context as a pretext for some witty writing and great comic acting. When it does try to tangle with reality you get some muddled tones, asides about secret police killing 1500 people in one night and the chief of the secret police being a raging pedophile stick out pretty awkwardly in a movie that occasionally swerves into pure slapstick. Not mad at it, it passed the time well enough, but it could've been something more.

Den Of Thieves - Just kinda average, neither a secret banger nor shitty enough for so bad it's good status. Imagine David Ayer trying to do a Heat remake without a good understanding of what Heat was actually about, it would probably be pretty close to this.

[gusty wingers]

on my way out for a few drinks before a 7p dollar cinema showing of annihilation... excited to finally see this one

[binary]

on my way out for a few drinks before a 7p dollar cinema showing of annihilation... excited to finally see this one

Dope movie. The last 25 min are polarizing but I thought it was brilliant

[gusty wingers]

I have been holding off on giving an opinion yet because I feel like I need to sit and watch this one more time

[drizzle]

Rampage - pretty satisfying, especially in the last 3rd when we get to the big format rampaging. The giant alligator was the best part. The obligatory falling building did give me a brief but serious bout of 9/11 anxiety but I have a hard time believing anybody involved with this thought it through that far.

[Gregg Popabitch]

I, Tonya

Effing masterwork. Robie embodies everything White Trash to a tee and is a delight to watch in literally every scene. That Janey didn't win an Oscar for her portrayal of the mother is criminal. It is one of the most stellar performances of the new millennium. Searing. Soundtrack is aces.

The chubby dude, the body guard, is the funniest shit ever.

Janney won.

[Employee]

[Spartan]

Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Was never a huge fan of this movie, but I did appreciate Keitel's performance in it. It's completely trivial to non-geeks, but the notable absence of Schooly D's Signifying Rapper from the film's soundtrack really pissed me off.

Touch of Death / When Alice Broke the Mirror (1988)
Big fan of Lucio Fulci's films, but this made for TV black comedy is really fucking lame.

Cold Skin (2018)
Enjoyed this a fair bit, despite all the heavy-handedness and dips in pacing. This had a real old school ripping yarn to it, which made it all the more appealing to me.

[drizzle]

Ready Player One - Pretty much as bad as you'd think it would be, there was one line that almost got me to straight up leave the theater (and I've literally never walked out on a movie for being bad in my life.) But at the same time there is a charitable reading of this thing where you could maybe give Spielberg some credit for at least trying to pretend this is a character-driven adventure story instead of a cynical exercise in peddling a specific subset of cultural nostalgia, and managing a few legit fist pumping moments where you actually cheer for a well used reference instead of groaning at yet another pointless 'here's a thing you recognize', and maybe (this one is really generous) squeezing in a few scenes where the movie purposefully satirizes its own cultural cannibalism and acknowledges the dystopian darkness of the premise. That last bit is a big stretch though, this thing could very plausibly just be so bad that it trips right into self parody.

Jailbreak - The first of the inevitable Raid ripoffs (or maybe just the first one I've seen), very decent. The premise is a combo of Raid 1&2, a team of cops goes into prison to escort an informant, shit gets real and they're stuck inside with no help, etc... The tone is much lighter, in a few spots its just a straight up comedy, but it delivers where it needs to. The fighting is well choreographed and plentiful and occasionally very brutal, the pace is quick, and it's not boring. A solid Netflix watch if you're in the mood to see people get beat up.

Manhunt - John Woo's first modern action movie since Paycheck..... it's not very good. The action is decent, you get a few flashes of the old master there, but everything else about it is somewhere between average and straight up weak. The plot is so incomprehensible that I'm seriously wondering if I was just too fucked up on edibles to make sense of it. Not just dumb in an action movie way, it was just incoherent and by the end I had no idea what was going on and why the people were shooting at each other. I might actually need to watch it again just to make sure I didn't fall asleep and miss key points or something.

Captain America: First Avenger - First time seeing this since it came out. In 2011 I never cared about Cap in the comics and thought this was a decent but perfunctory origin story that only existed as a building block for the bigger MCU, but it's actually aged really well and plays better now that he's had such a strong character arch through the later movies. The foundations of how he would evolve and what will drive him are all here, I guess they really did have a plan. Gotta give Marvel credit, the MCU is a bloated and often mediocre product but sometimes it hits hard.

[alpha]

Did you ever read the book for “ready player one”? Disappointed to hear your thoughts because it was a really fun book. The references worked perfectly but then again they couldn’t get all the licenses

[drizzle]

I read a little bit of it and hated it.

[alpha]

Yeah I ended up watching it last night. I understand your criticisms, agree with some and not others of your thoughts. Source material has a lot more depth. They did great adapting it to the screen. But it’s the Spielberg touches that irk me. Movie is supposed to be a standard treasure hunt movie but set in the most extreme of a nerd setting. I thought they did a good job. I loved the book so I’m a bit biased

[drizzle]

Funny thing is my gf read the whole thing and wasn't even into it but still said it was better than the movie. Her take was actually similar to yours, she didn't like what Spielberg changed and claims a lot of this made more sense in the book.

[alpha]

She’s right for sure. I like the book better, but the movie was fun. Kept me up late actually

[Y@k Bollox]

[Spartan]

Revenge (2018)
Hardly original and suspension of disbelief is an essential requirement, yet I still wound up absolutely loving this movie. Gory, brutal and gorgeous. Definitely going to be amongst my highlights for 2018.

[drizzle]

Red Sparrow - Combining a twisty LeCarre-ish spy thriller with a sexploitation-ish story of a woman forced to be a seductress for the glory of Mother Russia is a solid idea but this movie mostly bricks it. The intrigue isn't suspenseful, the sexy stuff is exploitative without actually being sexy (so just kinda gross and rapey.) Another waste of a really good cast.

[unclebengi]

The Running Man- I loved this as a kid and while the action parts don't hold up, the dialogue, story, and cast more than make up for it. Richard Dawson as the host is definitely the standout character. I especially love the way they frame Arnold at the the beginning, showing fake video of him doing the exact opposite of what he did on on the helicopter.

[alpha]

Did any of you watch the new hbo version of “Fahrenheit 451”?

[ric]

RBG 2018
Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary thing. Disappointing. I can't recommend it. I saw no trailers so going in I thought it was gonna be more like a story and not a documentary of a modern day twitter celebrity who happens to be a Supreme Court Justice. If you're actually looking for interesting info you can spend two hours googling and reading and feel like you got something more out of it than this movie gives.

[drizzle]

Operation Odessa - Really fun crime doc in the vein of Cocaine Cowboys and Square Grouper. Pretty much any story where insane amounts of drug money and post-Soviet military corruption overlap is bound to be a banger anyway, and this one has a submarine in it, so it's no brainier.

The Dunwich Horror - Solid lowbudget trippy 70s take on Lovecraft. Fun to see a young Dean Stockwell as a creepy villain, I can never picture him younger than he was in Quantum Leap. Really liked the way the dated acid-psychedelic effects were used here, they're cheap as hell but effective and I wish they did more shots of the monster at the end.

The Last Jedi - Without the benefits of a theater experience and a strong edible, the flaws in this thing become much more glaring. But there is still so much good in this that I can't dismiss it outright.

[Spartan]

Harakiri (1962)
Loved the hell out of this samurai movie. Between this and Sword of Doom, I might do some digging for more stuff in a similar vein.

Mildred Pierce (1945)
Can't think of a bigger spoilt brat portrayed in a movie like Veda. Despite going in expecting a whodunnit? rather than a soap-operatic style melodrama, I enjoyed this.

The Killers (1964)
Can't go wrong with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and John Cassavetes in a crime drama directed by the legendary Don Siegel. Had a good time with this movie. That go kart scene, though.

The Bloodthirsty Trilogy (The Vampire Doll, Lake of Dracula, and Evil of Dracula)
Seventies J-Horror emulating Hammer's gothic output. These were solid and entertaining enough, but I felt their real appeal came from them being oddball curiosities. Interesting how they went from a traditional European treatment to a more new world Count Yorga-esque style with each successive movie.

[drizzle]

Harakiri (1962)
Loved the hell out of this samurai movie. Between this and Sword of Doom, I might do some digging for more stuff in a similar vein.

Take a look at this, makes for a unique combo of your interests and it feels like good synergy that it was posted today. Only saw a minute of the short but it looked cool

http://filmcombatsyndicate.blogspot.com ... rd-of.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Spartan]

Harakiri (1962)
Loved the hell out of this samurai movie. Between this and Sword of Doom, I might do some digging for more stuff in a similar vein.

Take a look at this, makes for a unique combo of your interests and it feels like good synergy that it was posted today. Only saw a minute of the short but it looked cool

http://filmcombatsyndicate.blogspot.com ... rd-of.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The eighties synth soundtrack felt jarring and anachronistic when combined with the older style visuals, but that was very dope, regardless.

Worth posting the vid here:

[Tommy Bunz]

Spartan if you haven't seen Samurai Rebellion yet, you should put it at the top of your list. It's Kobayashi's masterpiece.
Other ones I specifically think you'd enjoy: Shadow Hunters, Incident at Blood Pass, Goyokin, Sword of the Beast, Demon Spies
Also Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy which is just the greatest fucking thing ever.

[Spartan]

Tommy, none of the films you mentioned are available over here, or are affordably priced.

I do have Criterion's UK release of The Samurai Trilogy, which I'm hoping to watch soon.

Welcome back, by the way. Here's an HD upgrade I made a while back:

[drizzle]

You should get a free trial week of Film struck, run through the good samurai stuff they have on there and then just cancel it before it becomes a paid subscription.