Topic: What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2020 Edition)

[Small Man Big Horse]

Chained For Life (2018) - An Actress working on an art film is fascinated by her co-star, who suffers from a severe facial deformation. It's initially interesting but I found myself feeling a little detached from events, and the way it plays with reality and you're never sure if you're watching part of the film, or actual events, started to annoy me after a bit, and the final half hour felt vaguely pointless to me. 5.4/10

[Sin Agog]

Josee, The Tiger & The Fish. 'Sweet, offbeat indie romance' which starts with a Mahjong croupier almost getting brained by a speeding pram, inside of which is a young woman, Josee, who's disabled from the neck down.  Really fucking winsome performance from whoever plays her- she coats herself with a patina of spiky defensiveness like so many truly vulnerable people do.  It doesn't necessarily go where you'd want it to, but I just loved that final shot.  Loverly wee fillum.

[Gulftastic]

'Fighting With My Family'.

Enjoyable enough. Good performances all round. I think I might have liked it more if I wasn't a wrestling fan as the obvious bits of nonsense shone through. Implying that Paige won the title in an unplanned shoot on live TV being the biggest clanger.

[Twit 2]

The Handmaiden

A lot funnier and sillier than I was expecting. Wasn’t too fussed about the plot twists but quite happy to luxuriate in the gorgeous costumes and sets.

Mary Poppins Returns

Really sweet and charming. Not as good as the original, obviously, but better than I was expecting.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Last night I watched The Edukators, some young German activists go round annoying the bourgeois by breaking into their gaffs and rearranging their stuff but not stealing anything. One attempt of this goes awry and ends in a botched kidnapping. Quite funny, made on a shoestring as well.

[Puce Moment]

Last night I watched The Edukators, some young German activists go round annoying the bourgeois by breaking into their gaffs and rearranging their stuff but not stealing anything. One attempt of this goes awry and ends in a botched kidnapping. Quite funny, made on a shoestring as well.

Saw this at a film festival when it first came out - with a director Q&A. Very interesting film, and released around the time that the country was telling stories like Goodbye Lenin and The Lives of Others, but also a re-evaluation of groups like the RAF.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Saw this at a film festival when it first came out - with a director Q&A. Very interesting film, and released around the time that the country was telling stories like Goodbye Lenin and The Lives of Others, but also a re-evaluation of groups like the RAF.

Yeah, I seem to be fascinated about that stuff. One of the actors was in Goodbye Lenin. The Baader-Meinhof Complex came out around then as well which also had Martina Gedeck in it who was in The Lives of Others.

Also in sort-of film territory, I watched The World on A Wire, whilst it's actually a miniseries criterion released it as two 90 minute things and I watched them back to back, so it was basically a long film.

It's based off the same story as The Thirteenth Floor, but is much better in a brooding 70's paranoia kind of way, it's also a bit like a more German, less camp, version of The Prisoner in some ways.

[phantom_power]

'Fighting With My Family'.

Enjoyable enough. Good performances all round. I think I might have liked it more if I wasn't a wrestling fan as the obvious bits of nonsense shone through. Implying that Paige won the title in an unplanned shoot on live TV being the biggest clanger.

We don't know that it was unplanned. Just that she froze to start with and it took a while to get going

[Twit 2]

Yeah, I seem to be fascinated about that stuff. One of the actors was in Goodbye Lenin. The Baader-Meinhof Complex came out around then as well which also had Martina Gedeck in it who was in The Lives of Others.

Also in sort-of film territory, I watched The World on A Wire, whilst it's actually a miniseries criterion released it as two 90 minute things and I watched them back to back, so it was basically a long film.

It's based off the same story as The Thirteenth Floor, but is much better in a brooding 70's paranoia kind of way, it's also a bit like a more German, less camp, version of The Prisoner in some ways.

Good video essay on World on a Wire by Jett Loe of the sadly defunct The Film Talk Podcast:

https://youtu.be/4J9RsC5GMqY

[Inspector Norse]

Ida
Beautifully shot, seriously gorgeous to look at, and a feeling of quiet rage and regret about it. I had some issues with the inscrutability of the eponymous character, which made her difficult to engage with (despite the actress being very naturally expressive, I think), and I also feel there was something a bit unconvincing about her maintaining that front despite all she learns over the course of the film. There was also a slight Euro-art-by-numbers approach there (people in peasant dress check, distant shots of figures in fields check, jazz club check, long driving scenes check). But I don't want to be too picky, it was a powerful and thought-provoking film.

[greenman]

Ida
Beautifully shot, seriously gorgeous to look at, and a feeling of quiet rage and regret about it. I had some issues with the inscrutability of the eponymous character, which made her difficult to engage with (despite the actress being very naturally expressive, I think), and I also feel there was something a bit unconvincing about her maintaining that front despite all she learns over the course of the film. There was also a slight Euro-art-by-numbers approach there (people in peasant dress check, distant shots of figures in fields check, jazz club check, long driving scenes check). But I don't want to be too picky, it was a powerful and thought-provoking film.

It does feel a bit like a considered attempt to "do an arthouse" from a previously more conventional director but one that ultimately comes off for me due to the strength of the drama which is really more focused on the aunt, I was  less taken with Cold War that didn't IMHO move beyond that considered artiness, nice to look at and Joanna Kulig is very good in it but generally rather slight.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah, the aunt was a much more directly relatable character and really well-acted too.

It’s a very fine line between pretentious vacuity and thought-provoking ambiguity and I’m not fully sure which side of it the central character is on.

[Famous Mortimer]

We decided to celebrate the new year with:

2020: Texas Gladiators (1982)

and

Battle Queen 2020 (2001)

Surprisingly, they were both not very good. The first one was a totally ordinary early 80s Italian post-apocalyptic effort, the second was...god knows, but you see Julie Strain's boobs a lot. It was a bit of a cable late night softcore porn movie, I guess.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Last night I watched Car Wash, it was a good bit of fun and had a great soundtrack by Norman Whitfield / Rose Rocye, plus an excellent funky track by The Pointer Sisters who featured in the film. Lots of familiar faces from people common in Blaxploitation films and also some people who would go on to bigger things. And George Carlin wandering around as a dopey taxi driver.

You can tell how it shaped and influenced things like Do the Right Thing as well.

[monkfromhavana]

Just watched the Polanski film 'Carnage' from 2011.

One of those films that you sit through, it's all well-made and shit, but you lose interest in it after about 15 minutes. Still, it has John C. Reilly in it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had a free ticket to the newly restored La Dolce Vita, I can see why it's considered great, the cinematography is excellent and it's very abstract and meandering compared to what studios were knocking out in the 60's, but perhaps it was because my mind was wandering a bit but I wasn't taken by it; it is long and I can't say I had much interest in the characters. I might have to rewatch it when I'm in a different mood, and now that I've realised that it's meant to be viewed as a series of episodes rather than a story.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Also just watched Lonely Are the Brave which was an excellent antihero western thing, left me quite sad at the end.

[PlanktonSideburns]

The fugitive

The only likeable Harrison Ford performance I've ever seen

Tommy Lee Jones looks like a sexy Staffordshire Bull Terrier

[greenman]

Watching Blade Runner on 4K BR and I suspect it might please Jim Bob, the shift towards teal/orange seems much less significant than the original Final Cut BR release.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Wind River 2017

Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, who previously wrote Sicario and Hell or High Water, this is another modern day Western sort of thing, this time focussing on a hunter and an FBI agent teaming up to investigate a possible murder on a native American reservation. As with Sheridan's previous scripts, I found this tense and gripping, with strong lead performances from Avengers cohorts Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner. It did poke my woolly liberal sensibilities a bit though: Like Dances With Wolves, Thunderheart and other such films, it's a story about native Americans that sidelines them in favour of putting whitey in the lead roles. It even has Renner integrated with the natives but better than them at everything.

That sour note aside, it's worth a watch I'd say. Plus, it's an original film for grown ups and those don't get made any more - except for this and all the others that do.

'Fighting With My Family'.

Enjoyable enough. Good performances all round. I think I might have liked it more if I wasn't a wrestling fan as the obvious bits of nonsense shone through. Implying that Paige won the title in an unplanned shoot on live TV being the biggest clanger.

I watched this yesterday and, while it's not as good as Glow or The Wrestler, it was nonetheless a pleasant way to while away a Sunday afternoon. I don't follow wrasslin' at all (although I had heard of Paige, through one of the Playstation WWE games) so I've no idea about the nonsense, which probably helped. Florence Pugh is very good indeed. I liked that the Barbie women weren't actually nasty and it was just Paige being insecure (although I reckon she was right to give that one the receipt after getting elbowed in the face, twice). The parallel story of the brother was surprisingly affecting and helped to ground what could easily just have been a puff piece for WWE (although it was still quite puffy).

I was mildly surprised to see it was written and directed by Steven Merchant.

[Jim Bob]

Watching Blade Runner on 4K BR and I suspect it might please Jim Bob, the shift towards teal/orange seems much less significant than the original Final Cut BR release.

Coo.  That does please me.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

They should have done as Blade Runner 2049 did and not bother with the teal.

[greenman]

Coo.  That does please me.

Seems like mostly less teal colour grading

[Johnny Textface]

Black Book directed by Paul Verhoeven. Luscious WW2 spy thriller filled with intrigue, drama and a little bit of cheese. Lass from Got plays the main protagonist (she plays the dark witch lady in Got) whose Jewish family are killed by the Nazis so she joins the resistance (in Holland I think) and her mission is to get cozy with the head of the local Gestapo. Lots of twists and turns. Final third goes a bit cartoon but a thoroughly enjoyable, classy yarn directed to a very high standard. Give it a poke. Its subtitled though if that's an issue for you. On Prime. His best film since Starship Troopers.

[Jim Bob]

Seems like mostly less teal colour grading

Aye. I just looked this up.  It appears that they've toned down the teal, which is good and yet they've amped up the orange.  Sake.  Why can't they just leave the colour grading as it was, upon its original release?

[greenman]

Aye. I just looked this up.  It appears that they've toned down the teal, which is good and yet they've amped up the orange.  Sake.  Why can't they just leave the colour grading as it was, upon its original release?

I don't think they've upped the orange anymore, rather they've toned down the teal which was previously over the top of it. It was the latter I really had a problem with as it wasn't just playing up the colour but introducing it where it didn't exist previously.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched two shit low budget Dinosaur flicks over the weekend, as both were recommended to me as "So bad they're good" movies:

Triassic Attack (2010) - A pre-Game of Thrones Emilia Clarke (who is supposedly a quarter Native American!) has to do battle with some dinosaur skeletons that have been brought to life due to convoluted reasons, it's pretty shoddy but made me laugh in a good few places and is worth watching if you're in the mood to mock a very silly movie. 5.4/10

The Jurassic Games (2018) - Where someone thought if they mixed The Hunger Games with Jurassic Park they'd have a hit on their hands, it actually tries to be a proper movie at times and has the odd decent joke, but there's hardly any dinosaur action and way too much tedious shouting and so isn't worthy of your time. 3.8/10

[peanutbutter]

The Edge of Democracy
Netflix doc about that whole situation with Lula and Bolsanaro. Seemed like it was largely designed to be a brief summary of the situation for people outside of Brazil and a bit ignorant of it all, so pretty good for me! Think it perhaps could've been a bit more of a dissection of what exactly went on with Lula's party that led to many of them falling into the traps of the system, would've been nice to see a bit more introspection from him and Dilma too.
The director's other documentary sounds way more interesting on the whole though.


Really need to find time to watch the Battle of Chile some day...

[sevendaughters]

MAN ON THE ROOF 1976 adaptation of one of the Detective Martin Beck novels (though randomly, no series, lightly implied backstory) in Swedish. A copper is found stabbed in his hospital bed and there's a fair queue of possible perps. The first hour is gumshoe as the phlegmatic Beck and his three mates (laconic, brash, ascetic) gather the evidence, then the final 45 goes fairly hard as the titular man starts taking potshots from the titular roof. Some stylistic homages to French Connection and one that pays off a slow burn. Worth a watch.

[Famous Mortimer]

I read the first two or three of the Martin Beck novels, but when I moved overseas, that was one of the collections I thought I could do without. Pisser.