What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2019 Edition)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Black Panther - absolute dogshit.  It was Guardians 2 all over again

Coinkydinkily enough I watched Grauniads 2 just the other day and appreciated it more than when I saw it at cinema. Admittedly, that first time I was feeling pretty shit (since my best friend was in the hospital, with what turned out to be a fatal disease - although that did make the ending hit me harder than it might otherwise have done) but it just didn't grab me like the first film did. Watching it a second time, with the benefit of several video essays about it, I really took in the themes and that a lot more.

It's as good as 12 Alien 3s.

And if you think calling the villain "Ego" is crass, just you remember the character names in Blade Runner 2.

[SteveDave]

Blackout (2013)

A British found footage film about what could/would happen if the National Grid was hit by a terrorist attack. Highly enjoyable especially when the survivalist dad gets himself whooped.

[sevendaughters]

had a double bill today

RITA SUE & BOB TOO - been ploughing through my Alan Clarke box-set and trying to fill in the big name off-box stuff (Scum remake, Made In Britain, Billy The Kid) and came to watch this for the first time since seeing it illicitly in hospital in 1994. First time I saw sex anywhere. What a place. Some slightly injudicious choices that feel like the pressures of the cinematic that are added on ie. shit theme tune doesn't take away from a brilliantly-written (in terms of dialogue, the keenness of the ear) drama with some incredibly captured moments (the opening scene, the middle bit where Bob's wife confronts Sue). Good stuff.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT - finally rounded off the trilogy. It's the worst but that is no critique, I liked it a lot and think it was only down to a slightly creaky start and a slightly elongated length. Once Delpy & Hawke get going, it takes this pair of fortunate romantics into darker territory successfully. Linklater's 'Americanness' showed with the ending that pulls them back off the cliff, metaphorically speaking. Sweet and nice and intelligent. I could go another.

[St_Eddie]

RITA SUE & BOB TOO - been ploughing through my Alan Clarke box-set and trying to fill in the big name off-box stuff (Scum remake, Made In Britain, Billy The Kid) and came to watch this for the first time since seeing it illicitly in hospital in 1994. First time I saw sex anywhere. What a place. Some slightly injudicious choices that feel like the pressures of the cinematic that are added on ie. shit theme tune doesn't take away from a brilliantly-written (in terms of dialogue, the keenness of the ear) drama with some incredibly captured moments (the opening scene, the middle bit where Bob's wife confronts Sue). Good stuff.

Ah, great little film.  I need to give that another rewatch sometime soon.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Good Time (2017)

Robert Pattinson stars as Constantine 'Connie' Nikas, a smalltime hoodlum embarking on a picaresque journey through the New York night, in order to make enough money to bail his mentally handicapped brother out of jail after a robbery goes wrong.

Forget all the jokes about sparkly vampires, because Pattinson is terrific here - all coiled intensity and manipulative charisma, constantly looking for an angle to exploit. Jennifer Jason Leigh makes an appearance as Connie's strung along girlfriend, a middle aged woman with the emotions of a teenager. Buddy Duress almost steals the film as a motormouthed criminal who becomes mixed up in Connie's misadventures.

It has the synth score (provided by Oneohtrix Point Never) and neon palette of early Michael Mann, but with a decidedly scuzzier feel. I don't know much about the geography of New York, but it feels like a view of the city that we're often told was wiped out by Giuliani, gentrification and whatnot.

It's currently on the Netflix.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Au Poste! (2018) - More madness from Quentin Dupieux where what initially seems like a mundane police interrogation becomes a much stranger piece, a treatise on the nature of storytelling, memory and the unreliable narrator which is very funny stuff indeed, even if the final twist has left me feeling slightly perplexed. The performances are superb, the dialogue makes it fascinating and though I'm not often a fan of films which are mostly set in one location this is a gripping, beautifully absurd film and one I'd recommend to all. 8.1/10

Who Would Kill Jessie? (1966) - Bizarre Czechoslovakian comedy that was recommended to me a couple of pages back, in it a scientist thinks she has created a way to end nightmares forever, and while it works it causes the subjects of the nightmare to materialise in real life. Soon a villainous Superman, a cowboy, and a female super scientist are causing chaos across the city, in a preposterous film which is pretty enjoyable but has a bit of a shitty ending where the female scientist essentially rapes Superman and both of them end up inside a dog, and the Haha Male Rape element loses it a point. 6.7/10

[Z]

Thoroughbreds

Bored the arse off me, Anton Yelchin is great as usual but... dunno what the fuck I was supposed to engage with in this film at all.

Forget all the jokes about sparkly vampires, because Pattinson is terrific here

Pattinson is great, he got a lot of guff for his performance in the Rover a few years ago but I thought it was ballsy as fuck and totally worked.

[greenman]

The Taviani brothers Night of the Shooting Stars, I admit I'v had a bit of a bias against Italian drama from the 70's to the 90's never having gotten on with the CaB christened "Bertolli movement" like Cinema Paradiso. This though I did actually enjoy a lot, I mean it has a bit of innate larger than life cheese to it and is very picturesque visually but not in the same rustic fashion as the above, compositions a bit more eye catching and the picturesque played off against brutal drama plus a bit of fantasy.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Pattinson is great, he got a lot of guff for his performance in the Rover a few years ago but I thought it was ballsy as fuck and totally worked.

Perhaps there would be some mileage in a thread about disrespected actors who turned out to be good.

[Artie Fufkin]

Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2005)

Ok, this was fine in itself. John Goodman & Robert Carlisle are the main people in it. With a lovely little cameo from Donnie Wahlberg who was great, actually. Also, Elden Henson (Foggy from Netfix's Daredevil, if you watch that). And Eldon blew my mind in it. I had to Wikipedia the film after to make sure I hadn't entered Bizarro World. I hadn't. *phew*

[Z]

Hollywood Shuffle

Messy and at times just really unfunny (seemed like it probably was improv'd a fair bit?) but this was pretty great overall. Just a really zippy fun energy to it and Townsend is plenty capable to carry it through.

Perhaps there would be some mileage in a thread about disrespected actors who turned out to be good.

I dunno if Pattinson was ever really that disrespected tbh, it was just an awkward career transition? Going from Twilight and Harry Potter to Cronenberg and a film where he plays a retarded character all the while openly shitting on his past films... taking a bit of a scorched earth policy to his career.

[Ferris]

Spiderman: into the Spider-verse
2018

Great cast and voice acting, and the visual style is terrific. It's just not for me. I didnt follow the story (too busy eating soup) but I bet it's a load of fun.

[chveik]

Au Poste! (2018) - More madness from Quentin Dupieux where what initially seems like a mundane police interrogation becomes a much stranger piece, a treatise on the nature of storytelling, memory and the unreliable narrator which is very funny stuff indeed, even if the final twist has left me feeling slightly perplexed. The performances are superb, the dialogue makes it fascinating and though I'm not often a fan of films which are mostly set in one location this is a gripping, beautifully absurd film and one I'd recommend to all. 8.1/10

it was pretty good, I found all the meta stuff a bit dull though.
I think the twist was strongly influenced by Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie.

[Shit Good Nose]

Hollywood Shuffle

Messy and at times just really unfunny (seemed like it probably was improv'd a fair bit?) but this was pretty great overall. Just a really zippy fun energy to it and Townsend is plenty capable to carry it through.

Yeah, it's not held up well at all and its parts are greater than its sum - the Sneakin' Into the Movies and Black Acting School sequences are still great, but all the soapy "real life" stuff in between often drags the film right down.

[Small Man Big Horse]

it was pretty good, I found all the meta stuff a bit dull though.
I think the twist was strongly influenced by Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie.

I've not seen the latter and now you've ruined it for me!!!!*








*Though to be honest given how long it's sat on my external hard drive for god knows if I ever would have, and your comment actually makes me want to watch it now, so, er, actually, thanks for that!

[chveik]

well you'll see for yourself SMBH but it's not really the kind of film that can be spoiled. anyway I hope you'll enjoy it. Bunuel's last films are among the best black comedies ever made.

[Small Man Big Horse]

well you'll see for yourself SMBH but it's not really the kind of film that can be spoiled. anyway I hope you'll enjoy it. Bunuel's last films are among the best black comedies ever made.

Cool, I shall definitely watch it within the next week or so after such a recommendation.

Drones (2010)

Written by the two blokes who do the "Thrilling Adventure Hour" podcast, directed by a couple of supporting actors from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", about the people and "people" who work at a  corporation called OmniLink. "Close Encounters meets The Office", they describe it as, which is pretty close. Watched it on a whim and loved it.

Tara was more than a supporting actor, you monster! But thanks for the recommendation, the cast is pretty impressive and if I can track down a seeded version of it I'll definitely watch it.

[SteveDave]

Thoroughbreds
Bored the arse off me, Anton Yelchin is great as usual but... dunno what the fuck I was supposed to engage with in this film at all.

I was angry at the end of this film.

[Z]

I was angry at the end of this film.

...what was the end of the film?

[zomgmouse]

Barbara (2012). Watched this because I loved Petzold's Phoenix. While this wasn't quite as good, it was still gripping and moving.

Mr. Saturday Night. Billy Crystal co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in this passion project about a washed-up comedian who had his heyday in the 50s. It's rather tender and sympathetic even when the main character is being a fucking cunt.

Whoops Apocalypse. Loses a bit of the farcical OTT mania of the TV series but still some enjoyable moments, particularly Peter Cook as a cuckoo conservative PM.

Vera Cruz. Tremendous proto-revisionist Western from Robert Aldrich starring a worn-down Gary Cooper and a brilliantly slimy Burt Lancaster, with a fun supporting cast that includes Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Charles Bronson. Fun dialogue and fun tension, but with Aldrich's typically unflinching brutal action.

Too Late the Hero. Another Aldrich, this time set in WWII with a largely British cast. An American lieutenant joins a troop of British soldiers (including a feisty Michael Caine) in the Pacific jungles. It's quite long but holds its action throughout.

[SteveDave]

...what was the end of the film?

A monumental waste of time. I was going to write something about Anton Yelchin here but good taste has got the better of me.

[zomgmouse]

This Is Not a Film. Really interesting and subversive. For those who don't know the backstory, Jafar Panahi was placed under house arrest and banned from making films. So he made this with the help of a filmmaker friend. Partly documents his day at home, partly features Panahi reading and retelling a screenplay that didn't get made. Very fascinating and powerful stuff.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Re watched Nightcrawler with gillenhall. Loved it! Escalates from plausible to ludicrous hell ride insidiously. Main lad is so much like the current rotisserie BOLLOCK that is my current employer it was almost a buss man's holiday

[sevendaughters]

This Is Not a Film. Really interesting and subversive. For those who don't know the backstory, Jafar Panahi was placed under house arrest and banned from making films. So he made this with the help of a filmmaker friend. Partly documents his day at home, partly features Panahi reading and retelling a screenplay that didn't get made. Very fascinating and powerful stuff.

Cracking film. Very brave.

Ties into my weekend double bill of Abbas Kiarostami films from his Koker trilogy - Where Is The Friend's Home? and Life And Nothing More. The first is like a neo-realist piece where a kid accidentally takes the schoolbook of his pal - but the pal will get expelled if he fails to do his homework again - so he goes on a kind of inept gumshoe mission to find his house, encountering all sorts of characters on the way. Probably the best end to a film I've seen in years. The second film posits the first as a film that happened in the world of the second, while a thinly-veiled Kiarostami drive to the location of its shooting to see if the actors in the film are okay after a terrible earthquake. Like other Iranian directors like Panahi above or Makhmalbahf it is meta but never at the expense of beauty and warmth. Two total classics, can't wait to see the third in the trilogy.

[SteveDave]

Bank Holiday...

The Similars (2016) A lovely bit of Twilight Zone business from Mexico. Stupid but fun.

The Boy (2016) Maggie from the Walking Dead has to look after a doll that an old couple (feat. Bishop Brennan) treat as their dead son. Not scary.

Whitney: Can I Be Me (2017) Drugs are bad and more addictive than our Lord Jesus.

Malevolent (2018) The Frighteners in Scotland but with more mouth sewing up.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Bank Holiday...

The Similars (2016) A lovely bit of Twilight Zone business from Mexico. Stupid but fun.

I really liked that, normally I struggle with films set in one location but they pulled it off really well here and the ending is satisfying stuff.

[SteveDave]

I really liked that, normally I struggle with films set in one location but they pulled it off really well here and the ending is satisfying stuff.

I wanted to batter that kid. His smug fucking face.

[Shit Good Nose]

Too Late the Hero. Another Aldrich, this time set in WWII with a largely British cast. An American lieutenant joins a troop of British soldiers (including a feisty Michael Caine) in the Pacific jungles. It's quite long but holds its action throughout.

I LOVE Too Late the Hero.  One of my all-time favourite WW2 films.  I've never understood why its reception has been so lukewarm for so long.  Great final sequence and end scene.

I'm also very fond of the film version of Whoops Apocalypse, even if most people aren't.



I finally bit the bullet and sat through all 7 hours (in one day) of Les Vampires on Sunday, having had it staring me in the face for the best part of two years.  Long films don't usually bother me, but I found it to be incredibly hard work.  Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of silent films (I like German expressionism and some Russian stuff, and Gance's Napoleon is one of my favourites, but struggle with a lot of the rest), but it just felt like 7 hours of mugging at the camera, guns that don't hurt people, climbing up (or down) buildings, clambering over roofs, and hiding behind curtains.  Certainly won't ever be watching it again.

[greenman]

Under advice to watch more Greenaway I picked up The Draftmans Contract, as I expected to some degree being much more formal than Cook, Theif, etc but overall I certainly enjoyed it, not as much ""shocking" art as I expected(bar the statue/man) sticking more to picturesque(if formal) style and with plenty of wit.

[MortSahlFan]

-Made For Each Other
-The Sign of the Leo
-The Insect Woman
-The Face of Another
-Adrift on the Nile
-The Insect Woman