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

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm a HUGE Smokey fan, and I even have genuine soft spots for 2 and 3.  But the first one - man, that diner scene with the Dr Pepper and diablo sandwich kills me, as does the "Junior, there is no way - NO WAY - that you came from my loins" bit (which is obviously cancelled today, as is most of the film).

PUT THE EVIDENCE IN THE CAAA

[Famous Mortimer]

Return of the Roller Blade Seven

I hate the original RB7, it absolutely fucking sucks (but is entertaining, in a get angry with it kind of way). This sequel, which feels like offcuts and outtakes and plots abandoned from part 1, manages to be even worse. The only entertaining bit is when Joe Estevez realises the movie he's in and gives a little disgusted look to the camera.

[Shit Good Nose]

Return of the Roller Blade Seven

I hate the original RB7, it absolutely fucking sucks (but is entertaining, in a get angry with it kind of way). This sequel, which feels like offcuts and outtakes and plots abandoned from part 1, manages to be even worse. The only entertaining bit is when Joe Estevez realises the movie he's in and gives a little disgusted look to the camera.

Joe did a lot of those looks.  A LOT.

[Dex Sawash]

V for Vendetta- avoided watching so far because I usually hate comic book things and when it was new it was loved by the same people who went on about Matrix which I thought was bad.
Someone on here mentioned it being good or OK recently so I watched it. Didn't really know what it was meant to be about or who was in it. Probably picked the correct year to finally watch it. Better than I expected but 30-40 minutes too long. Cast was better than I expected aside from her* off Star Wars being inconsistent.



edit -* Natalie Portman, could only come up with Jody Foster when I posted

[Famous Mortimer]

Carjack
Another movie from Donald G Jackson. Someone gets carjacked at the beginning, but then it wanders off into sideplots and my brain refused to let me pay attention to it. Oh, and this was re-released by Jackson's collaborator Scott Shaw as "Jacked!", which makes it all black and white and cuts some / most / all of the sex scenes and nudity out.

Oh, and he directed it under a pseudonym, as he was attempting to launch a career as a kids movie director at the same time.

I think I'm going to quit this pointless endeavour for a while. Donald Jackson and Scott Shaw might be the least talented, capable and hard-working people to ever get involved in the movie business.

[Famous Mortimer]

Miracle Mile
A local micro-cinema has started showing movies projected on a wall of their back yard, which they share with a local bar. So you walk in with a deck-chair, get a beer then walk out back to the cinema. Very nice. This movie was part of their "summer supporter" program, where people who spent $25 got a shirt and a couple of tickets to a special secret showing. So I turned up and this was on.

Anthony Edwards falls for Mare Winningham, but he oversleeps for their night-time date and by the time he gets to the diner where she works, she's gone home. As he's stood outside the diner, the phone rings, and it's a confused voice telling him about a nuclear strike happening in about an hour. He goes inside, freaks out and Denise Crosby, who's sat there with her chunky 80s cellphone, kinda confirms from her sources that something is going on.

So, the people in the diner hatch a plan to escape via a helicopter, and Edwards goes to try and save his new girlfriend. It's a bit "After Hours", and the last hour of the movie is pretty much in real time, so there's that too.

I enjoyed it, but the last chunk of the movie was sort of weak. Too much running around shouting peoples' names, that sort of thing. I do miss the wild tonal shifts of some 80s movies, though.

[Shit Good Nose]

Miracle Mile

I do miss the wild tonal shifts of some 80s movies, though.

I showed it to a mate of mine last year.  Despite being very cinema savvy, he had never even heard of it.

His jaw opened at two points - the first point was Brian Thompson in his little vest and tight lycra and the second point was the end.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I love Miracle Mile a huge amount, it was a film I rented out a stupid amount as a teenager, and when I revisited it about five years ago I found I still really loved it.

[Sin Agog]

Watched BFI's rejigs of those two almost perfect silent movie expeditions, The Great White Silence and The Epic of Everest, both with eerie scores by Simon Fisher Turner.  Think they may well be my favourite silent movies after Page of Madness.  Silence might just pip it for having the benefit of a bit of pathos in there as Cpn Scott never returned home, plus it features some really engaging early nature doc stuff in the first half.  The director would never make it in Starfleet because he flagrantly broke the prime directive when Orcas were closing in on a mother seal trying to save her cub.  They gave her a small helping hand by giving the whale a wee little kiss with a harpoon gun to scare him off.

[zomgmouse]

+1 for Miracle Mile. Tremendous stuff.

The Best Offer. The first few sections of this were , but then it got into the mystery and relationship and it started getting kinda dull, and the

Spoiler alert

reveal of the con at the end

[close]

was pretty obvious. I just did not care about Geoffrey Rush's character (also being sour on Rush as a person), which, which meant I didn't feel sad for him. Really disappointing from Tornatore.

Frances Ha. Quite the opposite of the above, this started off uninterestingly but soon grew to be really heartwarming.

[Blumf]

Will throw my hat in for Miracle Mile too, cracking little film that's weirdly overlooked.

[phantom_power]

Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway - like Tommy Wisseau trying to do a Christopher Nolan film. Dialogue that makes you think the writer has never met a human being before. Bizarre plot points, dead ends and non-sequiturs, acting that can be best described as "amateur". There are some interesting effects and themes but they are either heavy-handed or incomprehensible. I enjoyed it but am not sure why

[Famous Mortimer]

A Boy And His Dog

Don Johnson and his psychic dog wander through the post-apocalypse, and boy are they interested in rape.

Interesting ideas, and it was cool to have such an unpleasant main character, but the ending was...well, interesting, with a last line that Harlan Ellison (the writer of the original novella) hated.

[Gulftastic]

A Boy And His Dog

Don Johnson and his psychic dog wander through the post-apocalypse, and boy are they interested in rape.

Interesting ideas, and it was cool to have such an unpleasant main character, but the ending was...well, interesting, with a last line that Harlan Ellison (the writer of the original novella) hated.

The underground society is marvelously realised. Stuck with me for years when I saw this on Moviedrome.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Paper Moon - Love loved it, so sweet. Tatum O'Neil amazing, maybe my favourite child performance ever. Ryan excellent also. Shooting young actors in B&W always seems to look amazing. Madeline Kahn hilarious, her scene up on the bank with Tatum probably my favourite.

I watched this tonight as I was in the mood for something affecting and sweet and it certainly delivers on that front, and Kahn is as great as you say she is, but while I thought it was charming and full of moxie for sure, it was a little too slight for it to be a full on classic. 7.5/10

[Inspector Norse]

Jupiter Ascending The Wachowskis' massive flop is one of the nuttiest films I've ever seen, with its good points including stunning production design, intriguing interstellar worldbuilding and a bizarre performance from Eddie Redmayne - he really gets into the mind of a millennia-old planet-murdering galactic DNA tycoon - and its bad points including pretty much everything else but in particular Mila Kunis' wooden lead, a lot of fast-forward incoherent action scenes, blurry camerawork and dull colours hiding the aforementioned production design, and a baffling makeup job on Channing Tatum.

Also perhaps the only space opera to feature someone saying "don't treat your cousin like a chicken" in a comedy Russian accent.

And a freakish scene where one lead tries to seduce the other by implying she has a thing for dogs.

[Shit Good Nose]

I must admit it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be and not as bad as the critical consensus, but I never need to see it again.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah, I made it to the end which is more than I can say for Chronicles of Riddick.

[shagatha crustie]

The Act of Killing. Christ almighty. Has shocked me out of the relative complacency of living in a western liberal democracy more than maybe anything else I've seen. Also an extraordinary testament to the power of mimetic fiction. So much to process.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Last night I watched Swimming Pool. I was expecting it to be one of those slightly dull English/French films about some bilingual author played by someone like Charlotte Rampling staying at a gite while they struggle to write a novel and not much happens because you don't really care about the people in it at all. And it did start out like that, but ended up being quite a funny, daft and self-aware psychological thriller.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Last night I watched Swimming Pool. I was expecting it to be one of those slightly dull English/French films about some bilingual author played by someone like Charlotte Rampling staying at a gite while they struggle to write a novel and not much happens because you don't really care about the people in it at all. And it did start out like that, but ended up being quite a funny, daft and self-aware psychological thriller.

I really liked that too, and am fond of Ozon's films in general, he's definitely my favourite modern french director.

[Small Man Big Horse]

You'll Find Out (1940) - With a cast including Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff it's a little surprising that this comedy isn't a little more famous, especially as it's rather good. Also starring Kay Kyser (of "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge" radio and stage show fame) he and his band end up in a mysterious mansion that's full of secret passages and murderous implements, they're supposed to be performing at a birthday party but soon end up trying to stop a murder. It's not the smartest ever film and some of the jokes were dated even then (as the film acknowledges) but it's a pleasingly daft affair that I liked a good deal. 7.4/10

[Puce Moment]

I really liked that too, and am fond of Ozon's films in general, he's definitely my favourite modern french director.

I absolutely thought he was a she. What a donut.

[Egyptian Feast]

You'll Find Out (1940) - With a cast including Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff it's a little surprising that this comedy isn't a little more famous, especially as it's rather good. Also starring Kay Kyser (of "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge" radio and stage show fame) he and his band end up in a mysterious mansion that's full of secret passages and murderous implements, they're supposed to be performing at a birthday party but soon end up trying to stop a murder. It's not the smartest ever film and some of the jokes were dated even then (as the film acknowledges) but it's a pleasingly daft affair that I liked a good deal. 7.4/10

Now that's a blast from the past. I caught that one afternoon on Channel 4 a very long time ago (early 90s) and really enjoyed it. Must watch again.

Another spooky house comedy I enjoyed featuring Bela Lugosi was a rip-off of The Cat and The Canary called One Body Too Many. Undemanding fun, probably easily found on YouTube.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Now that's a blast from the past. I caught that one afternoon on Channel 4 a very long time ago (early 90s) and really enjoyed it. Must watch again.

It turned up as a freeleech on a private torrent site I'm a member of and was exactly what I was in the mood for yesterday, a simple but very fun (and occasionally odd) comedy.

Another spooky house comedy I enjoyed featuring Bela Lugosi was a rip-off of The Cat and The Canary called One Body Too Many. Undemanding fun, probably easily found on YouTube.

Thanks for the recommendation it was indeed on youtube so the next lazy Sunday afternoon I have I'll give it a go!

[Blinder Data]

The Act of Killing. Christ almighty. Has shocked me out of the relative complacency of living in a western liberal democracy more than maybe anything else I've seen. Also an extraordinary testament to the power of mimetic fiction. So much to process.

Probs one of the best documentaries ever? Extraordinary stuff.

Soderbergh's Out of Sight which is currently on Netflix. Elmore Leonard books make the best movies. Don Cheadle is really good in this. In fact everyone is, including J-Lo and the ones with barely any screentime, like Farina as her dad and Michael Keaton. Clooney at his sexiest/most charming? Probably. It doesn't glamourise the criminality/violence like Tarantino etc. Zips along despite a 2hr running time. Just a bloody good film.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

At the start of lockdown, I thought I would at least have time to make a dent in my Netflix queue. Six months later, I can at least cross The Lincoln Lawyer off the list.

Matthew McConnaughey stars as the titular defence attorney, whose slickly amoral facade is shaken when he takes on a high profile client. Being one of the foundational films of the McConaissance, its star is on fine form (he even keeps his shirt on most of the time) and is abetted by an excellent supporting cast that includes Marissa Tomei, William H. Macy and Ryan Philippe among others.

My only complaint would be that, rather than the heavyweight character study I'd expected, it turned out to be a bit of potboiler. It's not a major complaint though and, on its own terms, it was gripping stuff.


Conversely, Molly's Game sounds like it ought to be the stuff of dimestore novels, but is actually a classy production, based on a true story. Jessica Chastain stars as Molly Bloom, a former Olympic skiing hopeful, who finds herself embroiled with the criminal underworld when she ends up running a series of exclusive poker games for the rich and famous.

Aaron Sorkin pens the script - based on Bloom's autobiography - and also makes an assured debut as director. I suppose the obvious comparison would be The Social Network, but it reminded me more of The Wolf of Wall Street, albeit with a far more (i.e. even remotely) sympathetic lead character. The supporting cast is again excellent, including Idris Elba as Bloom's lawyer, Kevin Costner as her pushy and emotionally distant father and Michael Cera, cast against type, as an unnamed movie star and ruthless card sharp (one can't help but speculate whether he's based on Jesse Eisenberg). Ultimately, however, the film belongs to Chastain.


In contrast to the previous two pictures, Upgrade does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a pleasingly grotty little sci-fi action flick, in a similar vein to the likes of Robocop, or District 9. Logan Marshall Green makes a strong case for avoiding eternal damnation after Prometheus, as a luddite mechanic who, after a violent attack leaves his wife dead and him paralysed, has an experimental microchip grafted onto his spinal cord. With his newfound, AI assisted mobility he sets out to discover who was behind the assault and why.

The film's big selling point are its fight scenes, in which our hero submits control to the AI and watches with mounting horror as his body inflicts gruesome beatdowns upon his assailants. Imagine the possessed hand scene from Evil Dead 2, but with two combatants. The choreography and camera work are ace, while Green's reactions to the unfolding mayhem are priceless. It's very impressive to see him essentially acting two roles at once.

Leigh Whannell (of Saw and this year's Invisible Man fame) writes and directs, doing a pretty darn good job of both. In terms of getting the maximum bang for its buck and presenting a fully realised world, it reminds me of the first John Wick.

Upgradde (the extra D is for a double dose of its pimping).

Jupiter Ascending The Wachowskis' massive flop is one of the nuttiest films I've ever seen

Is it really that nutty? Other than Redmayne's scenery chewing, I don't even remember the film being all that camp.

[Dr Rock]

Has anyone seen Judgment At Nuremberg? Was reminded of its existence due to some YouTube thing which might have been Three Arrows or someone else. Anyway if it's boring I won't figure out how to watch it.

[Egyptian Feast]

Thanks for the recommendation it was indeed on youtube so the next lazy Sunday afternoon I have I'll give it a go!

I just read an old imdb review that oversells it a tad and realised halfway through that I wrote it back in 2004. I don't even remember writing any reviews on imdb. It's always a weird sensation to read things I've written and forgotten about. They always seem to have been written by a different person, more articulate yet twattier. He always seems to know things I don't remember. I'm going to have to see if this cunt has written any more on there and perhaps send him hatemail.

[Shit Good Nose]

Has anyone seen Judgment At Nuremberg? Was reminded of its existence due to some YouTube thing which might have been Three Arrows or someone else. Anyway if it's boring I won't figure out how to watch it.

Masterpiece, but obviously that's without knowing what your definition of boring is.  If you consider the Marvel films the pinnacle of film making, then I wouldn't bother.