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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2018 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 07, 2018, 12:20:15 PM

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SavageHedgehog

I didn't see Maggie but I did think he was good in Aftermath. That's a strange film because it might have got more attention with a more conventional dramatic lead, but the context of his most famous films adds to it a certain meta poignancy which, for me at least, makes it more memorable than it otherwise might have been.

magval

Another movie I wanted to see and completely forgot about. I'm away to see if I can find it here.

Famous Mortimer

Future Hunters

Guy in post-apocalyptic 2024 grabs the Spear of Destiny, transports him back to 1989, then the rest of the film feels like that bit at the end of Blazing Saddles where they crash through different film sets, only serious and not as good.

Large Noise

#513
A Scanner Darkly

Pretty good, sticks closely to the novel. Thought they made Donna and Bob's relationship closer than it seemed in the book, in part because they eliminate the age difference. Robert Downey Jr is good as Barris, and I think they scripted that character well, really brought out his annoying side.

Was struck by Rory Cochrane as Charles Freck, really put me in mind of Heath Ledger's Joker. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere as an influence, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

itsfredtitmus

The Travelling Players
Very pretty
Took a nap halfway through because my arse and eyes were straining

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Large Noise on March 20, 2018, 04:34:10 PM
A Scanner Darkly

Pretty good, sticks closely to the novel. Thought they made Donna and Bob's relationship closer than it seemed in the book, in part because they eliminate the age difference. Robert Downey Jr is good as Barris, and I think they scripted that character well, really brought out his annoying side.

Was struck by Rory Cochrane as Charles Freck, really put me in mind of Heath Ledger's Joker. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere as an influence, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

I saw this at the cinema when it came out and remembered enjoying it (a lot more than I did Linklater's other rotoscoped film Waking Life), but remember absolutely nothing about it.  Really must see it again.


I've had a bit of a binge on East Asian films over the last couple of weeks...

Ann Hui's The Story of Wu (or Woo) Viet, AKA God of Killers (the first title is more apposite), which is the second part of her Vietnam trilogy.  By far the worst of Hui's films that I've seen, mixing the same grit and grime with a spotlight on how poorly treated immigrants were by the authorities as explored in the excellent Boat People (the third part of the trilogy), with a very ropey and poorly executed romantic sub-plot, and a strip-club filled with midgets and dwarfs providing ill-advised comic relief.  And an East Asian man called Miguel.  Chow Yun Fat is good value as per normal, but the rest is a patchy affair indeed.  It doesn't help that every version available with English subtitles appears to come from the same rip of a VHS recording of a laserdisc.

Wong Jing(the immensely popular Hong Kong director that everyone hates)'s Evil Cult, AKA Kung Fu Cult Master, and High Risk, AKA Meltdown, both starring Jet Li.  I'm not as down on Jing as a lot of people - I don't mind admitting I love City Hunter and Last Hero In China - but I was left with the same feeling after watching these as, I suspect, most people are after watching any of his films that aren't God of Gamblers, or his subsequent collaborations with Stephen Chow.  Evil Cult has some great fight sequences (although a lot of them feature the dreaded wire work), but suffers from an incredibly confusing story (which might be down to the translation of the dialogue), some REALLY cheap effects and a bit of "hahahahaaaaa - RAPE!" (which not as many HK films feature as most people think).  Similarly, High Risk has some great set pieces, mixing martial arts and gunplay, but with more el-cheapo moments and "comedy", which rarely travels well to the West.

Duel to the Death, one of the great HK swordplay films, let down a tad by a tight running time (it feels like it should be an epic 3 hour drama, but as it is it's only just over 80mins long, with many of the dramatic scenes feeling rushed) and a really shit "surprise" with one of the main characters.  But, otherwise, some exemplary swordplay going on.

Kinji Fukusaku's New Battles Without Honor trilogy (comprising New Battles Without Honor, The Boss's Head and Last Days of the Boss).  As with Fukusaku's original 5-film series, this trilogy stars Bunta Sugawara again but, unlike the original, is comprised of three stand-alone films which are also a bit more light-hearted.  It goes without saying that this trilogy is nowhere near in the same league as the original saga (rightly seen as Japan's answer to The Godfather), but there's still a lot to enjoy, and they retain Fukusaku's gritty shakey-cam documentary look.

I've also watched a few versions of the 47 Ronin story, but I have three left to watch so I thought I'd chuck 'em in here when I'd seen all of them and do a little comparison, or start a separate thread entirely.

zomgmouse

Peeping Tom. Finally got to tick this one off my list. Predictably incredible. Crammed full of more symbolism you can poke a camera stick at. Awesome use of colour, too.

10 Rillington Place. Amazingly chilling and unsettling, especially after having read the book. Attenborough is astonishingly horrid here.

Custard

The version with Tim Roth is pretty solid, too. He's creepy as fuck, and it's ridiculously grim. Mrs Custard had nightmares for days afterwards

St_Eddie

Quote from: zomgmouse on March 22, 2018, 05:41:00 AM
Peeping Tom. Finally got to tick this one off my list. Predictably incredible. Crammed full of more symbolism you can poke a camera stick at. Awesome use of colour, too.

My Dad introduced me to that film as a teenager.  It's great.  I definitively agree with your assessment on the use of colour in the film; incredibly rich and vivid.  There's no justice in this world, in regards to what it did to Michael Powell's reputation and career at the time.

Dex Sawash

Home sick today, finished off missing Alien series. Had only seen Alien and Promethius before.

Aliens- I think this is the one everyone said was the bad one I reckon.

Alien 3 no, maybe this is the bad one

Alien Resurrection oh fuck, I owe the last 2 a rewatch now

Alien Covenant pretty standard stuff

St_Eddie

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 22, 2018, 09:26:15 PM
Aliens- I think this is the one everyone said was the bad one I reckon.

What planetoid are you living on, sunshine?  LV-426?

bgmnts

#521
Aliens is the best in the series. Anyone who says otherwise can suck Ridley Scott's cock all they want.

Day of the Jackal.

Went on a bit too long but a pretty good film. Thought the culmination of 2 and a half hours of build up was a bit wank though.

HOWEVER, I will give the film mega credit for not having the actors doing pointless French accents, something which the next film i'm watching, Schlinders List, fails to do.

Either let the actors do their normal voice or do it in the correct dialogue.

Dex Sawash

Aliens suffered from some bad dialog and Paul Rieser.

I liked A3 better, more tension and better supporting acting.
Was the prison doctor character a synthetic?

Needs to be a film about what became of Jonesy after Aliens.

Custard

Miss Violence (2013)

Fuck me, this was hard going. One of the grimmest, bleakest things I've ever sat through

It centres on a family with clear issues from the outset. As the film progresses, you find out just how fucked up it all is. A really tough watch

'orrible

4 dollops of ice cream

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 23, 2018, 11:29:14 PM
Aliens suffered from some bad dialog and Paul Rieser.
You're wrong sir wrong I say

I just watched Future-Kill, part of my "watch every movie that starts with the word Future" film review series. It's like The Warriors if all the gangs were crap New Romantics, and the Warriors were a bunch of wankers you wanted to see die, and the main villain was a cross between MF Doom and Freddy Krueger.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 23, 2018, 11:29:14 PM
I liked A3 better...

I'm with you on this.  I hope that you watched the assembly cut of Alien 3.  It's a significant improvement on the theatrical version.


Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 23, 2018, 11:29:14 PMWas the prison doctor character a synthetic?

No.  What led you to believe that he might have been?

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 23, 2018, 11:29:14 PMNeeds to be a film about what became of Jonesy after Aliens.

They'd have to recast because the actor whom portrayed Jonesy has since passed away and I'm not convinced that a new actor could do the role justice.

Z

Not a huge fan of alien but when i finally saw Aliens last year I was super underwhelmed. It was probably a lot more impressive in 1986 when James Cameron had yet to deal with proper huge budgets and the genre hadn't yet experienced most its peaks.


The Devils
Probably the best version of a kind of film I don't give a fuck about

the Shape of Water
Michael Shannon was having a lot of fun as the cartoon baddie, everything else was faintly annoying. Octavia Spencer's character was terrible.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 24, 2018, 02:50:52 AM


No.  What led you to believe that he might have been?


The others all had an important synthetic character. He had a secret about his reason to be there. I suppose it was still Bishop in A3.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 24, 2018, 09:50:00 AM
The others all had an important synthetic character. He had a secret about his reason to be there.

Yes but we later learn what his secret reason for being there was (the manslaughter of eleven patients, due to being drunk and his addition to morphine).

Dex Sawash

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 24, 2018, 10:44:20 AM
Yes but we later learn what his secret reason for being there was (the manslaughter of eleven patients, due to being drunk and his addition to morphine).

I forgot about The Young Doctor's Notebook twist there. A lot of Alien universe for one day.

itsfredtitmus

#530
Human Remains (1998), loved the use of exterior sound in this

Water and Power (1989), the most film Film


Sebastian Cobb

I think Alien 3 is better than the general consensus, but I think that's a fairly common held view innit?

St_Eddie

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on March 24, 2018, 02:48:03 PM
I think Alien 3 is better than the general consensus, but I think that's a fairly common held view innit?

Increasingly so, yes.  The assembly cut certainly helped matters and the ever-diminishing returns of quality in regards to the sequels which followed, certainly didn't hurt its reputation.  Alien 3 is one of my favourite horror films.  I consider it to be the true sequel to Alien, in terms of tone and atmosphere.  Aliens is a great action movie but it doesn't really jive with the cold, heartless universe of the original film.

itsfredtitmus

never seen any alien but i bet aliens would be my favourite alien

Z

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on March 24, 2018, 03:40:48 PM
never seen any alien but i bet aliens would be my favourite alien
I thought that and was incredibly wrong.



Downsizing
Very much a "what on earth were they thinking?" kind of film. Criticisms that it needed a script editor seem inaccurate though, there's aspects that oddly work well, and the somewhat boring diddering about is part of that, the use of really flat niceness instead of humour is part of that too. It kind of gets its message across well on an emotional level but not quite entirely.
I think I kinda liked it, but I also thought it was a big bag of shite.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Z on March 24, 2018, 09:36:01 PM
I thought that and was incredibly wrong.



Downsizing
Very much a "what on earth were they thinking?" kind of film. Criticisms that it needed a script editor seem inaccurate though, there's aspects that oddly work well, and the somewhat boring diddering about is part of that, the use of really flat niceness instead of humour is part of that too. It kind of gets its message across well on an emotional level but not quite entirely.
I think I kinda liked it, but I also thought it was a big bag of shite.

I know what you mean, it's by no means a great film but I felt the same way about it, and even it's not entirely successful I thought the critics were way too harsh about it. My only complaint is that Kristen Wiig's not in it much when the trailer makes her out to be a big part of proceedings.

bgmnts

About to rewatch Predator 2.


I love Bill Paxton. His death hit me so much harder than anyone else's this decade by a mile.

St_Eddie

Quote from: bgmnts on March 24, 2018, 11:25:17 PM
About to rewatch Predator 2.

I must say that I'm rather fond of Predator 2.  I can't fathom why, generally speaking; it has a bad reputation.  It's not as good as its predecessor but its still a thoroughly entertaining flick and a worthy sequel, in my estimation at least.

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on March 24, 2018, 03:40:48 PM
never seen any alien but i bet aliens would be my favourite alien

Aliens has many an alien.  Alien has a single alien.  Does that make it better?  Probably.  Actually, no but possibly.  It all depends upon how many aliens you want for your buck.

St_Eddie

EDIT: Alien gone done stitched me up, son.  Ooohhh, my once beautiful, award winning face!  It's been decimated by a jaw within a jaw.  Ouch!  That stings and make no mistake.

itsfredtitmus

Rewatched Rita Sue and Bob at like 4 in morning last night
Don't think I appreciated just how much truth and honesty are in this on first viewing
It's got really long takes of people walking ebb and flow and handhelds in peoples faces so it's Clarke