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

[St_Eddie]

apparently Valerian was supposed to be a franchise, but it looks like that won't happen now for various reasons

Not least of all because its failure almost put the production company out of business.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

any film that gets a mixed reception is 1000% more likely to be interesting than anything that gets universal acclaim

[phantom_power]

"any", "1000%", "anything". I think that might be the most hyperbolic post in forum history

[Monsieur Verdoux]

once again i am being persecuted for being extremely correct

[phantom_power]

I didn't say you were wrong

I mean, you are but I didn't say it

[Mister Six]

Bad Times at the El Royale - cracking opening hour or so, with some gorgeous cinematography and a lovely single-shot scene following John Hamm's character as he makes a creepy discovery. However, it has the same problem Hateful 8 did, which is that once the various characters' pasts and motivations have been revealed, it doesn't really have anywhere else to go, and so has to introduce a new horrible villain to raise the stakes and help bring things to some kind of a close. It's still entertaining and worth a watch, but it's a three-and-a-half-star movie rather than the five-star stormer it could have been if it had kept up the quality of that first hour.

The Hidden is quality trash - a gloriously daft film about an FBI agent hunting down a disgusting alien that possesses people's bodies (including Babylon 5's Claudia Christian as a stripper) so it can... er, commit robberies and thefts. There's probably some commentary on capitalism-hungry 80s sociopathy but mostly it's just a fun, silly show. Kyle MacLachlan stars as the proto-Dale Cooper agent (sadly not as peppy and fun) and another soon-to-be Twin Peaks alum, Chris Mulkey (Hank Jennings, Norma's ex-con husband), as the first host.

Have I gone on about One Cut of the Dead on here before? It's amazing, go watch it. But go into it completely blind, knowing nothing. It's a zombie movie (sort of) and comedy (definitely), but even if you hate horror movies in general and zombie movies specifically, I'm pretty sure you'll love this. Trust me. But don't read up on it at all before you watch it. Just stick it out until the (real) end.

[Blumf]

The Hidden is quality trash - a gloriously daft film about an FBI agent hunting down a disgusting alien that possesses people's bodies

It is a honest to god fun 80s B-movie. The car chase near the start is brilliant, getting most the clichés. Claudia Christian got her B5 roll thanks to this film.

[greenman]

I'd say Besson's "recovery" with Lucy was a bit overstated, really an okish sub Matrix action film sold mostly via Johansson giving a good performance for the first half being able to turn dialog like "I can feel my brain" into decent drama and some pulp 2OO1 stuff at the end.

[amputeeporn]

Bad Times at the El Royale

Found this painfully, laughably bad from start to finish, but it did definitely get worse as it went. The ending is so formless and whatever that it feels free-associated. Almost everyone except Hamm and, I guess, Bridges was miscast, too. Still occasionally think of the *creepy* bell boy, whose idea of acting is making Tobey Maguire's cum face, or especially Dakota Johnson/her sister and especially especially the Manson guy, and wince. Everything happens to make a 'cool' moment rather than because it's a rational thing a person would do.

It had a nicely formed and promising setting, though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Last night I watched New Jack City, it was alright, I guess, it's one of the first Neo-Blaxploitation/Blaxploitation revival films of the 90's so it's only fitting the music is better than the film.

Over the top and daft, but quite enjoyable.

[Artie Fufkin]

Have I gone on about One Cut of the Dead on here before? It's amazing, go watch it. But go into it completely blind, knowing nothing. It's a zombie movie (sort of) and comedy (definitely), but even if you hate horror movies in general and zombie movies specifically, I'm pretty sure you'll love this. Trust me. But don't read up on it at all before you watch it. Just stick it out until the (real) end.

My brother keeps banging on about this. I'm gonna do my utmost to watch it over the weekend.
I watched Bone Tomahawk again the other day. Has one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever watched. Brilliant stuff. Kurt Russell is great in it.

[MortSahlFan]

Written in the Wind - 7.5/10

[Mister Six]

Caught four films on a 16-hour flight to Hong Kong and am so jetlagged that I just typed "cought". Still, I need to stay awake a bit longer, so here we go:

I was under the impression that Aquaman was one of the few good DC movies, alongside the excellent Shazam! and pretty good Wonder Woman. It isn't. The opening hour is just wall-to-wall exposition, with flashback after flashback explaining the pointlessly intricate history and underwater politics of the seven tribes of Atlantis, and clunkingly dull dialogue mapping out details that either don't matter or are basically ignored anyway. That's followed by a fun 45-ish minutes where the movie becomes a superpowered Romancing the Stone and there's a great chase across the rooftops of a Sicilian village, then the obligatory pixel-packed woosh-bang battle sequence wraps it up. Was it just low expectations that got this film so much positive buzz?

Blindspotting, on the other hand, was fucking astounding: a great character comedy with dips into genuine absurdity that builds towards a horrifically tense dramatic climax. Co-writers Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal are pitch-perfect as Collin and Miles, a black ex-con looking to sail through his parole and his hair-trigger white "gangsta" best friend who rails against the gentrification of Oakland. The plot descriptions I've seen make it sound very worthy (which it is) but don't get across how gut-bustingly funny it is for most of its runtime too. Highly recommended.

Fighting With My Family is the titanic team-up of Stephen Merchant and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson we've all been waiting for. They're the writer/director and producer, respectively, and make cameo appearances, but the real meat of the story is the (sort of) true tale of a young Norwich girl from a family of small-time wrestlers who travels to America to audition for the WWE. There's a bit more going on under the hood than you might expect, with some well-realised family drama, and while it starts off pretty weak (and with some shite performances/dialogue) it gets substantially better - and funnier - as it goes along. Not essential, but definitely decent "quiet evening in" VOD fodder. It does take liberties with the real life story (in the film she goes from wrestling in working men's clubs straight to WWE try-outs and then gets a belt on her first WWE appearance; in reality she was making international appearances for years before the WWE try-outs, and then appeared on the WWE juniors show NXT for two years before making the leap to the big leagues) and for some reason the film is happy to admit that the matches are all fixed until it's time for her to win her first WWE belt and then it pretends they were actually competing unrehearsed. But fair fucks - it makes for a much better story.

The last one was Cold Pursuit, the Taken/Fargo mash-up that nearly got Liam "the bad thing about wanting to murder black men is that revenge is wrong" Neeson #cancelled. It's not awful, but not terribly compelling either. Neeson goes on a revenge spree after his son is killed by criminals, sparking a gang war in the process (pleasingly, he's not a hyper-competent murder machine, and has to have a lie down to catch his breath after beating a man half to death). It's got an off-kilter sense of humour that often works, but it also feels sprawling and aimless, and while it feels like it's trying to make some point about the meaninglessness of revenge, so little time is actually given to Neeson's character - even his failing marriage to Laura Dern might as well have been entirely cut, consisting of about two brief exchanges of dialogue - that it's hard to eke much of a message out of it. Feels like an undercooked pastiche of a Martin McDonagh film.

In summary: make a point of seeing Blindspotting as soon as you can; give Fighting With My Family a whirl if the opportunity arises; save Cold Pursuit for when you've got nothing else on, and skip Aquaman altogether.

Oh, and I watched the first 20 minutes or so of The Predator, too, but it looked shite so I went to sleep.

I'd say Besson's "recovery" with Lucy was a bit overstated, really an okish sub Matrix action film sold mostly via Johansson giving a good performance for the first half being able to turn dialog like "I can feel my brain" into decent drama and some pulp 2OO1 stuff at the end.

I thought Lucy was shockingly bad. The moment she wakes up from the operation she's basically a completely different, unsympathetic character, and her increasingly absurd power level means there's zero tension because obviously nobody is going to be able to get close to her, much less kill her.

I watched Bone Tomahawk again the other day. Has one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever watched. Brilliant stuff. Kurt Russell is great in it.

My one reservation about Bone Tomahawk is how easily they manage to escape at the end, given the build-up of the film up to that point. I assume the budget ran out or something. Hope you enjoy One Cut of the Dead! Let us know what you think.

It is a honest to god fun 80s B-movie. The car chase near the start is brilliant, getting most the clichés.

Even with the fellas crossing the road while holding a plate glass window! Classic.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Watched the film Town Bloody Hall and found it really entertaining. Norman Mailer has tremendous 'screen presence' if you can call it that. Also features Germaine Greer at her coolest. The whole thing has a really electric atmosphere. Can be watched totally free and legally here if you don't mind watermarks: http://www.historicfilms.com/tapes/9658

[greenman]

once again i am being persecuted for being extremely correct

In vulgar rotten tomatoes terms I do tend to mistrust anything with supposed ambition that scores something like 95% or more, generally tends to indicate its quite inoffensive.

[Mister Six]

I'd never heard of Town Bloody Hall before, but its Wikipedia page sounds like output from Talk to Transformer:

Jill Johnston introduces lesbian feminism,[4] in which she argues all women are lesbians. She argues the need for all women to accept themselves as lesbians in order to create substantive political change.[4] She reiterates that lesbianism is used as an insult when women are feminists when in reality they are just learning to love themselves in order to be equal to men.[4] At this point in the film, two women come to the stage and begin kissing and rolling on the floor, much to the dismay of Norman Mailer.[4] Eventually, they walk off the stage and do not return.

Still, sounds very interesting and I'll give it a watch some time.

any film that gets a mixed reception is 1000% more likely to be interesting than anything that gets universal acclaim

If you're talking about Valerian, I can assure you that it is not.

[Dex Sawash]

Valerian is exactly what a Besson film should be, big daft romp. You sour cunts probably don't even like Taxi.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Valerian fucking rocks, i will NOT back down on this

[Monsieur Verdoux]

loads of sneery reviews at the time were like "oh it has a sequence where Rihanna plays a shape-shifting alien stripper if you want an idea of how bad this is" as if that is somehow not something that completely owns?!?!

[Monsieur Verdoux]

anybody who slated Valerian while praising Dunkirk doesn't really understand cinema

[Mister Six]

loads of sneery reviews at the time were like "oh it has a sequence where Rihanna plays a shape-shifting alien stripper if you want an idea of how bad this is" as if that is somehow not something that completely owns?!?!

Her bits and the part where the monster king was going to eat Eyebrows' brain were the only parts I liked. Maybe the opening with the tourists connecting to the distant bazaar. The rest of it was a boring fucking dirge, and the lad who looked like an even more skag-addled than normal Culkin brother was a total charisma void.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

lead guy was definitely miscast and shit, not even sure what the thinking was behind him being in it because it's not like he's a major box office draw or anything. he doesn't even look like the comic book character

[Artie Fufkin]

My one reservation about Bone Tomahawk is how easily they manage to escape at the end, given the build-up of the film up to that point. I assume the budget ran out or something. Hope you enjoy One Cut of the Dead! Let us know what you think.

Even with the fellas crossing the road while holding a plate glass window! Classic.

Cant find a decent stream of it, currently. None of the versions have subtitles. May have to pay for it.....
We watched Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery last night. It was pretty shit, but fun. Sandler was quite likeable in it. Jennifer Anniston, pleasing on the eye. Terence Stamp, yay! David Walliams....?

[Shit Good Nose]

anybody who slated Valerian while praising Dunkirk doesn't really understand cinema

Wow.  I'm framing that.

[Enrico Palazzo]

lead guy was definitely miscast and shit, not even sure what the thinking was behind him being in it because it's not like he's a major box office draw or anything. he doesn't even look like the comic book character

Everyone is miscast in it.

[wooders1978]

Wow.  I'm framing that.

It is quite an eyebrow raising statement I must agree

[Mister Six]

Everyone is miscast in it.

Rihanna was great in it.

I'm not being ironic - she was great.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Wow.  I'm framing that.

frame it and place it in the Museum Of Correct Takes

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Philadelphia Experiment - Bit wank.
Sudden Fear - Decent.
Chopping Mall - Shit but good.

[zomgmouse]

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder. The kind of oddity you'd only get in the free reign of New Hollywood, really - produced by Playboy, it's about a Vietnam veteran who's essentially navigating PTSD by engaging in shenanigans at his hospital.

Death Race 2000 (the original). A bunch of silly futuristic car race fun.

Wings. Another Larisa Shepitko. Absolutely astounding, especially the final fifteen or so minutes. A brilliant character study of post-war USSR.

The Realm. Spanish political thriller from last year - a politician's career plummeting through being embroiled in deep corruption. Really fascinating falling narrative trajectory. Great final scene.

Starting to go more through Abel Ferrara:

Body Snatchers. Not the best adaptation as it misses some of the personal panic and doesn't really come together, but the actual pods are fucking viscerally creepy and unpleasant.

Dangerous Game. Essentially Ferrara's attempt at a Cassavetes film but by god is it a good attempt. It's set on a film set with the director (Harvey Keitel) pushing his actress (Madonna) very hard and also starting an affair with her. Pretty fantastic.