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What films are you watching?


Pancake

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Just watched Hollywoodland on Blu Ray.

Pretty good.

Atmospheric, noirish true story of George Reeves; the man who played Superman in the 50s and shot himself. Or did he?

Great attention to detail in this film, especially from Ben Affleck (who I don't usually like).

Worth a watch.

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(Rec)

 

The script is incredibly functional, almost to the point that it feels like you're watching somebody playing a video game (search X's apartment and find the key for the re-inforced door in the cellar, avoiding the zombie granny in the hallway/ zombie Y has the keys for the hand-cuffs in his pocket, kill him and use them to release Z before she gets bitten). Stylistically, it uses the same 'point of view' trick as Cloverfield, Blair Witch, Cannibal Hollocaust, as a camera man and female presenter become trapped inside an apartment block rife with zombies and a variety of soon-to-be-zombies. It shouldn't work for a number of reasons, but it's absolutely stonking, gripping you from the first scene right up to its crazy Rubber Johnny-inspired night-vision ending. The acting is very naturalistic and it shocks you in ways you really don't expect to be shocked. When the boss zombie turns up at the end, my girlfriend actually screamed :D Spainish cinema can do no wrong at the moment, Rec is another great example of how its leaving hollywood trailing in its wake.

 

8/10

It is excellent movie.Try Frontiers an amazing French horror (for want of a better word) film.

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Robocop 2 - not the worst film ever made, but still utterly awful compared to the first film. rubbish script, terrible acting, cringe-worthy attempts at humour, no audience empathy whatsoever, and it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth like anything connected to Frank Miller (he wrote the script). Whereas the first film had great fun attacking the notion of vigilante justice, this one just wants to be Dirty Harry. 3/10

 

Alphaville - Crazy French New Wave sci-fi (set in a distant galaxy which looks a lot like Paris in the 60s) that has great fun deconstructing film noir, but like most of Goddard's films, its a bit of a slog to get through. Contains one of the funniest fight scenes ever. 7/10

 

Slumdog Millionairre - pretty good I suppose but nothing amazing, its most interesting aspect is that it takes the viewer on a tour of Mumbai's slums and dares to have a hero that works in a call-centre. 6/10

 

Man on Wire - brilliant documentary about the twin towers and the french wire-walker who made it his dream to break in and travel from rooftop to rooftop. its made like a bank heist and to its credit leaves all the 9/11 stuff unsaid. But the shots of the towers being built can't help but conjure up images of its twisted and burnt wreckage. highly recommended. 9/10

 

 

Watched Man Bites Dog last night. Fantastic black comedy and one of the best (only?) decent films to come out of Belgium.

 

Thats a crazy film. I don't think too many films come out of Belgium but here are three great French films made by Belgium directors -

 

The Ordeal/Calvaire - if you got to the end of Man Bites Dog then you'll probably 'enjoy' this one. A club singer breaks down in the middle of the French countryside and gets abducted by the freaky, in-bred locals for all manner of appalingness. The first half is slow-burning and the second half is absolutely phucked in the head insane. Just like the manin character, you reach a point in the craziness where you start laughing uncontrollably. its unforgettable and very funny, but not funny ha-ha.

 

Delicatessen & The City of Lost Children - two very strange but great early films by the guy who later did Alien 4 and Amelie.

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Recently i've watched...

 

Gran Torino - good film...Clint Eastwood really is the man...with a good line in nicknames for his neighbours 8/10

 

Twins - still love this film 8/10

 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - not as good as it wants to be 7/10

 

Waltz with Bashir - cracking animated film, highly recommended 9/10

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I'm amazed how people enjoyed Gran Torino. Nothing really happened from start to finish. Some very clever witty lines from Clint Eastwood which is why he is so fantastic, but as a serious fan I was disappointed. Clint Eastwood+Guns=Action. That's what his career has been built on. In Gran Torino they really made you feel like something was going to happen, but nothing ever did.

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I'm amazed how people enjoyed Gran Torino. Nothing really happened from start to finish. Some very clever witty lines from Clint Eastwood which is why he is so fantastic, but as a serious fan I was disappointed. Clint Eastwood+Guns=Action. That's what his career has been built on. In Gran Torino they really made you feel like something was going to happen, but nothing ever did.

 

Agreed. I was let down too. Clint doesn't have to do much other than snarl and grunt but still does a good job....and his racial jibes were v. funny. Not terribly impressed by his directional work. He tends to over-simplify and never goes into depth with the story or characters. Very watchable but nothing special.

 

 

Night at the Museum 2 - 2/5 (Not out of choice you hear) Nothing new, silly overkill plot, etc - everything you'd expect from a sequel for this type of movie. Ricky Gervais had an even smaller part (as did Coogan). Amy Adams was nice to look at though.

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Watched Bullitt [1968] for the first time in a few years the other night. It starred Steve McQueen and the very cute Jacqueline Bisset. For my money though, it's not quite the film some people make out. I think there is an element of rose coloured specs with Bullitt. The opening title music/credits is so classically cool though, that it makes you want for more. If that has been bettered then I can't remember when.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3s4j8HD6o

 

And the car chase, that we all know and love, is undeniable.

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Waltz with Bashir - cracking animated film, highly recommended 9/10

 

I finally got round to watching this film recently, having been meaning to for ages, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a heart-wrenching true-story. What really caught my attention was the bits where he was interviewing his old comrades who witnessed the massacre and although I don't understand Hebrew, it sounded as though the director had taken actual recordings of interviews with the real veterans and incorporated them into the film to give it that extra sense of realism. Superb film-making.

 

I liked the dark humour, like the bit where he is wandering through the airport in Beirut, which added a whole different dimension, and the real-life video footage at the end (won't say any more in case I give too much away) is quite harrowing and really brings home the message that this atrocity actually took place in our lifetimes.

 

I don't think I could ever give a film 10/10 but this must come close to being not just the best animated film I have ever seen, but up there among the best films of any genre, so it gets a 9.5

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It is excellent movie.Try Frontiers an amazing French horror (for want of a better word) film.

 

Agree with Rec (can't wait for Rec 2) and agree with Frontiers. Also "Switchblade Romance" is another great French horror.

 

Rec was so good that the American's remade it within 6 months and called it "Quarantine", exactly the same but in English with American actors.

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Agree with Rec (can't wait for Rec 2) and agree with Frontiers. Also "Switchblade Romance" is another great French horror.

 

Rec was so good that the American's remade it within 6 months and called it "Quarantine", exactly the same but in English with American actors.

 

I will check Switchblade Romance out.

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be happy but be prepared to have a little cry now and again and brace yourself for the immensely moving ending.

 

Agreed. When I first watched this film the ending actually moved me to tears, and that is the first time a film has done that since I first watched Watership Down as a child.

 

Can't recommend it highly enough.

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Agreed. When I first watched this film the ending actually moved me to tears, and that is the first time a film has done that since I first watched Watership Down as a child.

 

Can't recommend it highly enough.

 

SPOLIER WARNING THINGY ABOUT PANS LABYRINTH

 

The endings a real killer, this bad thing happens which you don't expect, you then have this wonderful fantasy sequence which comes and wraps a nice warm blanket around you and tells you everything's alright, and then with the very last shot of the film it rips the blanket away and tells you that actually everything is very far from alright and that fairy tales, untouched by disney, don't have happy endings.

 

its interesting that its about the spanish civil war but its set two years after the war officially ended. spain remained under fascist control until the 70s so its clear that the rebel forces ultimately lost their struggle, so i guess this is their last small victory of sorts. maybe its not that interesting.

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Synecdoche, New York - What an utterly strange film. Exploring the exploration of death by a director who is basically failing at life. I can see how this is ridiculously polarising, either self-indulgent tosh or complete brilliance. I quite enjoyed it, it becomes almost dream-like with time being distorted as the central character becomes more and more immersed in his project, which becomes a tapestry of meta-narratives, before building up to a powerful, yet confusing, ending. 8/10

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I've been lent Pan's Labyrinth. I don't whether to be happy or sad.

 

I had a real Shadowlands moment with Pan's Labyrinth at the end, but 'cos I watched it at home couldn't blame it on any air conditioning at the cinema. Not a dry eye in the house. Triffic film.

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Watched The Pianist last night. Found it to be a strange film, following the true story of a Jewish pianist (supposedly the best in Europe at the time), and how he managed to first escape going to a labour camp and then escape the confines of the Ghetto. Shows the shocking truth about the German treatment of the Jews and for about an hour focuses on his isolation in Warsaw after severe bombings and his struggle for food.

 

If you do watch it be sure to get a copy that has english subtitles (for when the soldiers talk) otherwise you may only understand every 10th word (like me :( ).

 

Still an interesting watch

 

7.75/10

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Shows the shocking truth about the German treatment of the Jews and for about an hour focuses on his isolation in Warsaw after severe bombings and his struggle for food.

 

I think that Stanley, and everyone else 'special' enough to drink from Nick Griffin's fowl teats, would disagree with you there. The holocaust was actually a big tea party with rainbows and kittens and smiles and laughter. The evil Jewish press, supported by intellectual gay gypsies, then spun this into some kind of mechanised slaughter for their own dastardly means. And as a result, white working-class racists are now treated like a minority in their own country by the PC brigade, general do-gooders and the health and safety lot. Hopefully, when the BNP sieze power, films like The Pianist will be exposed as nothing but lies. I mean, can anybody actually prove that WWII happened or that Poland exists?

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Watched the directors cut of Watchmen on blu-ray (its not available in the uk yet but thankfully the US blu-ray is region free).

 

3 hours long and fantastic. I felt the cinema release was a little rushed so this version has gone some way to correct that.

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I think that Stanley, and everyone else 'special' enough to drink from Nick Griffin's fowl teats, would disagree with you there. The holocaust was actually a big tea party with rainbows and kittens and smiles and laughter. The evil Jewish press, supported by intellectual gay gypsies, then spun this into some kind of mechanised slaughter for their own dastardly means. And as a result, white working-class racists are now treated like a minority in their own country by the PC brigade, general do-gooders and the health and safety lot. Hopefully, when the BNP sieze power, films like The Pianist will be exposed as nothing but lies. I mean, can anybody actually prove that WWII happened or that Poland exists?

Chicken breasts???

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Watched Mercury Rising last night.

 

It was a mid-90s 'thriller' with Bruce Willis which means: The FBI all wear suits and drive slow Fords, the FBI are seen to be doing the right thing but Willis goes off on one and looks to be the villain but turns out the hero. It also means that they are all fighting against 'modern' technology which, even for the time, looks stupid.

 

A similar theme is seen in the first die-hard, but that was done very well and is a great film. This, however, is done very poorly so I advise you to avoide at all costs.

 

4/10

 

(P.S The books may have been better though)

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Watched Mercury Rising last night.

 

It was a mid-90s 'thriller' with Bruce Willis which means: The FBI all wear suits and drive slow Fords, the FBI are seen to be doing the right thing but Willis goes off on one and looks to be the villain but turns out the hero. It also means that they are all fighting against 'modern' technology which, even for the time, looks stupid.

 

A similar theme is seen in the first die-hard, but that was done very well and is a great film. This, however, is done very poorly so I advise you to avoide at all costs.

 

4/10

 

(P.S The books may have been better though)

 

Both Mercury rising and Rain Man,yes different genres of film i know,did nothing but stereotype people with Autism or Aspergers syndrome.

However Rain Man set out to be entertainment and fulfilled it's obligation,in that dept,whereas Mercury rising failed on all counts,imo.

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