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

[Shit Good Nose]

The comedy side perhaps but I cannot imagine him in a role like Terminator or even Commando.

The Rock can't weakly say "Chenny" for one.

[Z]

He didn't need any of that tag team nonsense.

Rock was having an extremely messy transition to being an out and out babyface, that tag team run softened him up hugely and done an awful lot to move his onslaught of risque quotes and what into meaningless digestible waffle.

The two of them were getting monster ratings together on television, that's why the Rock was doing that for a while (plus an obvious agenda to elevate HHH to a similar level going on from elements)



DAMNATION! (dir. Bela Tarr, 1989)
Worst film of his I've seen by a long distance. Felt like a prototype for later things. The dance scene was good.

The woman beside me loaded up on wine at the start, breathed extremely heavily thoughout the film and spent the second half shaking her arms and knees aggressively waiting for it to end. I got to the point that I just held my hand up to my eye to block her from my peripheral vision.
A guy the other side of me was drifting off at one point but went out and got himself a coffee, like a sensible human being.

[Twit 2]

Hell or High Water - a bit underwhelming. First hour was repetitive and very on the nose with the banks are the baddies stuff. Towards the end it went to some interesting places. Good acting and sense of place throughout, but I am amused the writer said he got into screenwriting as an actor fed up with clunky, expository dialogu when the first half of the film is full of exactly that, with Foster repetedly calling Pine ‘little brother’ so that we know.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just seen the first Indiana Jones in the cinema. What an experience! You can tell that surround sound was relatively new because they really panned everything all over the shop, good though, especially with the orchestra and that.

[greenman]

Hell or High Water - a bit underwhelming. First hour was repetitive and very on the nose with the banks are the baddies stuff. Towards the end it went to some interesting places. Good acting and sense of place throughout, but I am amused the writer said he got into screenwriting as an actor fed up with clunky, expository dialogu when the first half of the film is full of exactly that, with Foster repetedly calling Pine ‘little brother’ so that we know.

Most of the appeal I'd say depends on Jeff Bridges revisting his Roster Cogburn performance, I could happly watch that half a dozen times.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just seen the first Indiana Jones in the cinema. What an experience! You can tell that surround sound was relatively new because they really panned everything all over the shop, good though, especially with the orchestra and that.

After that I saw Strangers On a Train, which was fantastic as well.

[Spiteface]

Transformers: The Last Knight

This was the first one I had the common sense to skip when it was in cinemas. These get even more incomprehensible as time passes. Apparently Earth is UNICRON, Hot Rod is french and Shia LaBoeuf's character from the first three might be descended from fucking Merlin.

[St_Eddie]

Just seen the first Indiana Jones in the cinema. What an experience! You can tell that surround sound was relatively new because they really panned everything all over the shop, good though, especially with the orchestra and that.

Have I ever told you that I hate you?  No?  Well, I hate you.

Mind you, that's almost certainly just be the jealousy talking.  The only Indiana Jones movie that I've seen at the cinema is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Fuck you.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Have I ever told you that I hate you?  No?  Well, I hate you.

Mind you, that's almost certainly just be the jealousy talking.  The only Indiana Jones movie that I've seen at the cinema is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Fuck you.

Going to see temple of doom next week mate!!

[St_Eddie]

Going to see temple of doom next week mate!!

That warrants less of a venomous 'fuck you' and more of half-hearted middle finger, aimed vaguely in your direction.

If you go to see The Last Crusade the week after, then we'll almost, but not quite, be back to square one.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I am seeing that the week after, funnily enough.


Would it be terribly sexist to say I really fancied the nazi lady in it when I was a teenager? I mean, I still do now, but I did then as well.

[St_Eddie]

I am seeing that the week after, funnily enough.

Bastard!

*shakes fist*

Would it be terribly sexist to say I really fancied the nazi lady in it when I was a teenager? I mean, I still do now, but I did then as well.

Why on Earth should it be sexist to fancy a woman?  If I were you, I'd be more concerned at being attracted to a Nazi.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Lord Love A Duck (1966) - Roddy McDowell plays a weird student, despite being 36 at the time of filming, who decides to help a girl's dreams come true. It's a very funny and strange ride, though it sags in the middle unfortunately, but then the final half hour returns to form. 7.4/10

Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) - Quirky road movie where a band from Russia hit the US in the hope of finding fame and fortune.It's often quite dry but it has an appealing sense of humour, even if the narrative is very loose. 7.4/10

[zomgmouse]

Lord Love A Duck (1966) - Roddy McDowell plays a weird student, despite being 36 at the time of filming, who decides to help a girl's dreams come true. It's a very funny and strange ride, though it sags in the middle unfortunately, but then the final half hour returns to form. 7.4/10

Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) - Quirky road movie where a band from Russia hit the US in the hope of finding fame and fortune.It's often quite dry but it has an appealing sense of humour, even if the narrative is very loose. 7.4/10

BOTH OF THESE: YES
Lord Love a Duck is supremely weird! Gives me shivers sometimes how very odd it is. That sweater scene - what?

[thecuriousorange]

Watched The Cable Guy for the first time in 20 years. It's quite good and has aged better than either Ace Ventura film. I wonder how different it would be with anyone other than Jim Carrey in the lead. This film was seemingly his first with flashes of serious acting (amid the usual funny voices/faces/gesticulting etc). Matthew Broderick was likeable. Behind Jim Carrey's rubber-faced buffoonery this is a decent, serious(ish) film. The connesieur's favourite?

[St_Eddie]

Behind Jim Carrey's rubber-faced buffoonery this is a decent, serious(ish) film. The connesieur's favourite?

I'd say so.  I remember being sorely disappointed by it, upon its initial release, as I had been expecting a broad comedy, more in line with Jim Carrey's usual output at the time.  However, it's grown on me, more and more, as the years go by.  As you say, it's held up a lot better than a great deal of Carrey's other, goofier movies.

[Small Man Big Horse]

BOTH OF THESE: YES
Lord Love a Duck is supremely weird! Gives me shivers sometimes how very odd it is. That sweater scene - what?

Absolutely, and I'm pretty sure that the dad's constant cackling will haunt my dreams for years to come!

[Large Noise]

My Friend Dahmer- What's interesting about this is how it could so easily be a nostalgic coming of age story set in the late 70's. It could almost be Freaks and Geeks or Napoleon Dynamite or Lady Bird; there's that kind of tonal warmth about the world in which it's set. Instead we're watching Jeffery Dahmer descend into violent sociopathy while he superficially appears to be struggling with, but more-or-less navigating, the various rites of passage you'd expect of a highschool senior in suburban America.

Criticisms:

Some of the dialogue is written to portend what comes later in his life. It's too contrived and obvious though.

His relationship with his group of friends doesn't quite have the substance it could have, which is a problem because it's the emotional centre of the film.

[St_Eddie]

My Friend Dahmer

It's not perfect but that was my favourite film of last year.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Receptionist - A Taiwanese lass living in London has graduated Uni and is struggling for a job, ends up as a receptionist in a brasshouse with a few East-Asian women, Ken Loach levels of bleakness ensue.

Good though.

[gout_pony]

I saw Pin Cushion from last year. I felt its combination of cuteness and bleakness was pretty unusual and quite exciting at times. Far more tonally cohesive than one would imagine from watching the trailer and reading the plot summary. Also Isy Suttie was great at playing someone awful.

[Sin Agog]

The Big Blue.  Used to be my favourite film when I was in my teens. Besson's eurotrashy humour lept out at me much more upon rewatching, but as a guy who does free-diving a few times a week, the sea-somnambulance still grabs me.  Used to have the biggest crush on the lead French dude in this.  He'd probably fancy a dolphin over me, though,

Also Night of the Comet (fun), Lola Montes (never felt like the character quite came alive for me, but Ophuls really does know how to put on a circus.  One of the better framing devices out there), and Ophuls' son's Hotel Terminus. I guess it'd be odd to say how much fun I found this, considering the subject matter- fucking brutal escaped Nazi war criminal who the U.S. employed on account of his unique knowledge of the Soviets- and Marcel Ophuls' other long docs, but I do.  He always gets way deep into the politics of every situation he's in (can't remember the name, but the one he made in the middle of the Irish crisis was especially great in that regard), creating some really bristly interviews...he even sometimes gets into slanging matches with a couple of subjects, though Michael Moore he ain't. 

Also Dennis Potter's Casanova, which I hold right up there with The Singing Detective.  The memoirs are probably my favourite book, and apparently Potter didn't even finish reading them (he started, but found him 'vain and arrogant' which is one of the things I loved about reading them), but you wouldn't know from watching his adaptation.  It even seems to capture his essence more than the Fellini version, which was good (Nino Rota's score might be in my top ten) but felt more like a montage.  Frank Finlay fucking owned the role.  He clearly liked the character and gave him more humanity than maybe Potter put on the page.  The central themes are memory and captivity, which Potter clearly related to, being housebound for years on end due to his psoriasis.  The flashbacks get a bit much, but I get the point of them- those memoirs were written at the behest of a Bohemian physician who, seeing that the aged Casanova was ailing badly, advised him to dive into his memories with the alacrity of someone experiencing them for the first time, and it worked, until the memoirs started catching up with the present-day and the effect began to wear off (depriving us of an account of how he ended up spying for the very Venetian inquisition which had jailed him in early life).  Anyway, massive side-track, but the series is well worth a watch, like anything by Potter.  Infinitely more to chew on than the shite version starring Doctor Who.

[Sin Agog]

By the way, I have the vaguest of vague memories of seeing that Roddy McDowell movie, Lord Love a Duck.  Might have been something else.  Is there a scene early on where he and another student take refuge inside the campus, and bar up the doors?  Something like that.

[Small Man Big Horse]

By the way, I have the vaguest of vague memories of seeing that Roddy McDowell movie, Lord Love a Duck.  Might have been something else.  Is there a scene early on where he and another student take refuge inside the campus, and bar up the doors?  Something like that.

The lead character does that right at the beginning, yeah, though he's on his lonesome and being pursued by a big group of people.

[Twit 2]

Wind River has turned up on Netflix. Absolutely excellent, much superior to Sicario and Hell or High Water. He’s very good at sudden, unexpected moments that put you on the edge of your seat and change the game. This had the same sombre feel as something like The Pledge (also on Netflix). Brilliant use of landscape, well written and well acted, just a solid film all the way through. Only downside is I had to turn on the subtitles a couple of timed as a couple of plot points nearly escaped me in the mumbled dialogue.

[Large Noise]

Wind River has turned up on Netflix. Absolutely excellent, much superior to Sicario and Hell or High Water. He’s very good at sudden, unexpected moments that put you on the edge of your seat and change the game. This had the same sombre feel as something like The Pledge (also on Netflix). Brilliant use of landscape, well written and well acted, just a solid film all the way through. Only downside is I had to turn on the subtitles a couple of timed as a couple of plot points nearly escaped me in the mumbled dialogue.

Additional downside was the gratuitous product placement in the form of Carhartt doing all of Jeremy Renner's outdoorsman-style clothing.

[Small Man Big Horse]

You, Me and Him (2018) - Two women are in a fairly new relationship when after a drunken one night stand one of them is impregnated by David Tennant, whilst the other becomes pregnant via IVF. It's funny in places, but occasionally cringeworthy, and then just over an hour in it becomes rather bleak as one of the unborn baby's dies. Cue twenty minutes of misery until we get a predictably happy ending. It's fine for lazy Sunday afternoon kind of viewing, but nothing more than that. 6.4/10

[Large Noise]

Barry Lyndon- I've not really read anything about this but I was struck by the incestuousness at work in many of the characters' relationships. Also not sure how you're meant to feel about Baz himself. On the one hand, he's a lying cheating conniving shit. On the other, the world he lives in is so dismal you could never really blame him.

Dr Strangelove- I know everyone has long since decided that this is officially a good film. But even then I was surprised by how entertaining it is, and how relevant it remains. I especially liked the way the characters involved in the eschatological predicament seemed able to switch their attention to trivialities, as if the end of the world was just inconvenient. 3-4 years ago I was struck by how some of the hawkish US military types on twitter (John Schindler for example) could tweet "I reckon this situation is Ukraine is going to get nuclear any day now" one minute then "How about them Red Sox" or whatever shortly afterwards.

[greenman]

Got the Arrow release of Kieslowski's Dekalog(very reasonable at £25 for 5 BRs and 5 DVDs plus a decent sized book) and watched the first couple of episodes last night...

One - Certainly combated any fears I might have that the series would be below his latter work in terms of craft, indeed I think it might be the best looking Kieslowski I'v seen next to Veronique. In terms of the story I would confess I'm a little torn, I mean its certainly very effecting and I spose you could argue it exists purely as a tragedy but I can't totally get past the idea of it as some kind of judgement of the lead character which doesn't really seem justified on the evidence presented or really inline with Kieslowski's other work.

Two - Surprisingly different in look and I see looking at the book with it each episode switches cinematographers which I spose makes sense given the overlap in location, much more down to each here although a few shots do have me thinking Gondry was watching it before making that video for Protection. Dramatically as well more what I would typically expect offering a nice middle ground in terms of religion.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've only seen the first part of that as I found it so bleak I didn't wish to continue (mainly as I was in a very depressed place at the time), but I do love Kieslowski so should give it another go.