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

[Custard]

Yeah, that bit was a bit jarring. When her character sort of shrugs it off afterwards and says "ah, I wasn't raped. I agreed to go there" I did think it was very clunky

[SteveDave]

Klute

I can't believe Jane Fonda won an Oscar for this. I was unsurprised to discover this was directed by the same man who directed "All The Presidents Men" as it was similar in its blandness.

The Long Goodbye

Lovely Elliott Gould again. The ending was a bit unsatisfying but there were chuckles throughout.

[Egyptian Feast]

The Long Goodbye

Lovely Elliott Gould again. The ending was a bit unsatisfying but there were chuckles throughout.

I love the ending. I initially wasn't sure about the movie on my first watch because I was such a fan of the novel, but as it went on I loved the liberties Altman took with it and of course Gould's interpretation of the character. I wasn't expecting Marlowe's actions at the end at all and his kiss-off line killed me. Definitely my favourite Chandler adaptation.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I love The Long Goodbye.

[Egyptian Feast]

I'm glad it's well regarded now, considering how badly it was received at the time. I love most of Altman's 70s films, but it's easily my favourite.

[chveik]

I think Klute's pretty good

[Sebastian Cobb]

And me. I think all 3 of the Paranoia Trilogy are good.

[kittens]

klute was boring as all hell

[peanutbutter]

Harpoon

sorta horror/comedy type things, I guess. Has 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and like 60 on Metacritic, which I feel should say a lot about what you're gonna get from it tbh.
However, it came out in the last 12 months and is 80 minutes long so five stars from me.

[Inspector Norse]

I watched some films

The Host Probably Bong Joon-Ho's best-known film prior to Parasite, people talk about this as an all-time great monster movie but I thought it was just so-so. A couple of nicely-handled scenes and plenty of satire and social commentary, but tracing-paper-thin characters, hammy acting and a fairly routine plot had my interest waning.

The Load On Mubi, a sharp and interesting film following a truck driver in Serbia during the NATO bombing in the 90s. Strong central performance from Leon Lucev (who looks basically exactly how you would imagine a truck driver in Serbia in the 90s to look) as a man struggling to admit and accept what he is doing as he carries mysterious loads for the Serbian army. Several side plots and scenes that lead nowhere, quite deliberately.

Hail Satan? Engaging, amusing and sympathetic documentary about the Satanic Temple in the USA, who are not so much about goat-shagging and baby-sacrificing as they are about staging publicity stunts to highlight the hypocrisy and bias of mainstream religion and politics. Features, as you might expect, lots of people dressed in black with goatee beards and piercings, although the only one who did come across as a bit scary was the young guy with a bow tie and a manic stare. The main guy Lucien Greaves comes across as sharp and witty.

The Last Battle Luc Besson's debut, amusing and stylish, if minor, lo-fi sci-fi with a bunch of men trudging around and fighting each other in a post-apocalyptic world where people have lost the ability to talk. Jean Reno is good in his breakthrough role as a git.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched some films

The Host Probably Bong Joon-Ho's best-known film prior to Parasite, people talk about this as an all-time great monster movie but I thought it was just so-so. A couple of nicely-handled scenes and plenty of satire and social commentary, but tracing-paper-think characters, hammy acting and a fairly routing plot had my interest waning.

Nearly everyone I know loves The Host but I was left a bit cold by it as well, it was fine but I couldn't quite understand why it's so acclaimed. I'm generally a big fan of Joon-Ho too, so it's not like I'm one of those racists you get all over the place these days.

Hail Satan? Engaging, amusing and sympathetic documentary about the Satanic Temple in the USA, who are not so much about goat-shagging and baby-sacrificing as they are about staging publicity stunts to highlight the hypocrisy and bias of mainstream religion and politics. Features, as you might expect, lots of people dressed in black with goatee beards and piercings, although the only one who did come across as a bit scary was the young guy with a bow tie and a manic stare. The main guy Lucien Greaves comes across as sharp and witty.

I loved that a lot, and it's one of the most fun documentaries I've seen in ages.

[phantom_power]

And me. I think all 3 of the Paranoia Trilogy are good.

What's the third? Parallax View?

The Long Goodbye is a fucking masterpiece. The perfect marriage of source material and directorial style, subverting both enough to meet in the middle

[Sebastian Cobb]

What's the third? Parallax View?

The Long Goodbye is a fucking masterpiece. The perfect marriage of source material and directorial style, subverting both enough to meet in the middle

Yeah, it's probably the weakest one of the three.

I watched Three Days of the Condor recently which isn't related other than being similar thematically but it was bloody good.

[phantom_power]

Yeah, it's probably the weakest one of the three.

I watched Three Days of the Condor recently which isn't related other than being similar thematically but it was bloody good.

Me too. I realised about 20 minutes in I had seen it before but have no idea when. I just remembered bits as they happened.

I have only seen Parallax out of the trilogy but thought it was very good. There was a lot of that sort of thing about in the 70s, what with those and The Manchurian Candidate and the like

[Egyptian Feast]

I think I've only seen The Parallax View out of the trilogy too, and if it's the weakest I really must see the others. The test sequence blows me away and terrifies the fuck out of me every time it see it. Even if the rest of the movie isn't in quite the same league, that sequence is a masterpiece and the tune is a fucking banger.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sex Lives Of The Potato Men (2004) - Mocked before it even came out due to it's all round rubbish name, upon it's release the knives were out and boy had they been sharpened for the reviews were vicious, of the kind where critics were genuinely angry at what had been shoved in front of their eyes. But with a cast that includes Johnny Vegas, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis, Julia Davis and Mark Gatiss, could it really be that bad? The answer is yes, and if anything the reviews weren't harsh enough, this is ugly, putrid, cuntish comedy of the very worst order, packed with the kind of attempts at humour that are so horrible and offensively bad that I genuinely found myself feeling violently angry by the end of it. Writer / Director Andy Humphries deserves to be imprisoned for crimes against cinema, and never released, and I'd like to say harsher things but those words would probably see me arrested. The worst film I have ever seen, there is not a single good thing I can say about it and I will never understand why so many talented people were involved in it's making. 0.1/10

[Custard]

Kinda wanna see that now! For the sheer spectacle of it

[Egyptian Feast]

Now that was a panning! I'll take your word for it. I'm always intrigued by movies that inspire passionate slatings, but that just sounds like a wasteland. Besides, I still haven't caught King Ralph yet.

[Egyptian Feast]

The worst British film I've seen was The Fat Slags, which also wasted a decent cast. If this is really worse than that (and I can well believe it), you might have grounds to sue Humphries because that sounds like assault to me.

[SavageHedgehog]

Same year if you can believe it. What a time it was to be young and British

But wait let's be fair and look at all the positive reviews it got

[Small Man Big Horse]

Kinda wanna see that now! For the sheer spectacle of it

Well that was my theory originally, and was only watching it because I heard it was so horrendous, but it truly is a horribly bleak affair and I'd have quit after twenty minutes if I hadn't been planning to review it for the site I run.

Now that was a panning! I'll take your word for it. I'm always intrigued by movies that inspire passionate slatings, but that just sounds like a wasteland. Besides, I still haven't caught King Ralph yet.

My memories of King Ralph is that it's largely harmless in comparison, it might be misjudged and weird but it's not actively hateful like this, though I haven't seen King Ralph since it's cinema release.

The worst British film I've seen was The Fat Slags, which also wasted a decent cast. If this is really worse than that (and I can well believe it), you might have grounds to sue Humphries because that sounds like assault to me.

I've never seen The Fat Slags and don't think I could subject myself to it, before Potato Men I'd have said my least favourite British film was Mad Cows which is weirdly incompetent as well as painfully unfunny, but SLOTPM is far, far, far worse.

[kittens]

eyes wide shut was pretty good. the whole sex club thing was spooky as all hell, mostly due to the song. i was expecting more from the film from what i have read about it, but after reflecting on it for the past day it was pretty thick with stuff wasn't it. FOUR STARS

watched room 237 today which was pretty good. thought some of the bonkers theories had some stuff in em, and some of the continuity stuff they point out is interesting. they're all quite obviously very silly, but that's what it's about, isn't it. make me want to watch the shining again already.

and that is kubrick done.

FINAL RATINGS (the kittens rating system: 1* bad, 2* o.k., 3* good, 4* great, 5* perfect)

THE KILLING **** (4 STARS)
PATHS OF GLORY ***** (5 STARS)
SPARTACUS ***+ (3.5 STARS)
LOLITA *** (3 STARS)
2001 ***+ (3.5 STARS)
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ***+ (3.5 STARS)
BARRY LYNDON ***+ (3.5 STARS)
THE SHINING ***** (5 STARS)
EYES WIDE SHUT **** (4 STARS)

great work kittens!

what director do i do next please lads

[Inspector Norse]

what director do i do next please lads

Uwe Boll

[sirhenry]

what director do i do next please lads

Hal Ashby

Though I'd stop after Being There.

[Sebastian Cobb]

eyes wide shut was pretty good. the whole sex club thing was spooky as all hell, mostly due to the song. i was expecting more from the film from what i have read about it, but after reflecting on it for the past day it was pretty thick with stuff wasn't it. FOUR STARS

watched room 237 today which was pretty good. thought some of the bonkers theories had some stuff in em, and some of the continuity stuff they point out is interesting. they're all quite obviously very silly, but that's what it's about, isn't it. make me want to watch the shining again already.

and that is kubrick done.

FINAL RATINGS (the kittens rating system: 1* bad, 2* o.k., 3* good, 4* great, 5* perfect)

THE KILLING **** (4 STARS)
PATHS OF GLORY ***** (5 STARS)
SPARTACUS ***+ (3.5 STARS)
LOLITA *** (3 STARS)
2001 ***+ (3.5 STARS)
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ***+ (3.5 STARS)
BARRY LYNDON ***+ (3.5 STARS)
THE SHINING ***** (5 STARS)
EYES WIDE SHUT **** (4 STARS)

great work kittens!

what director do i do next please lads

Robert Altman

[Small Man Big Horse]

what director do i do next please lads

Andy Humphries.

[Gregory Torso]

Children Of The Corn (1984)

Keywords: horror, red paint, shit hair, cunt kids, corn.

I was planning to marathon all ten Children Of The Corn films because you know, why not push self into spiral chasm hell of everlasting bastard torment, sick of tilting on the lip of oblivion, why not give a shove? (Un)fortunately, I have now abandoned the idea, because if the first, and presumably finest and most paramount, of the series is this bad, just imagine how miserable "Children Of The Corn 6(66) - Isaac's Return" will be.

First up, I have to give some props to the casting agency for finding such a hateful, squealing, shrill, posionous marmoset to play the antagonist, Isaac. Hot Christ, he makes Joffrey from Game Of Thrones look like the kid from Jerry Maguire. He is bad. He runs the fields with a tin foil scythe and for some reason, despite looking like Jeanette Krankey dressed as a plague doctor, everyone obeys him.

Linda Hamilton, looking as cute as a candy seahorse pic'n'mix, and her husband, whose name I am not motivated to check, but he looks like a sort of grey, american Nicholas Lyndhurst who has melted a bit in a drizzle because he is made out of wax. Anyway, they're driving, driving through corn, and they hit a fucking scarecrow rag mannequin bullshit kid. So they put its body in the car and

Fucking, like in the short story, they're a couple who hate each other, because it's Stephen King and if it's not couples on the brink of divorce, it's horrible kids with pscyhic powers and bowl haircuts, and you don't really know what's happened until it's too late and they're in the town, and its stubborness and resentment that leads to their deaths, but here, they're in love and there's signpost fuckery which leads to what... there's a pointless prologue showing you everything going in and out, gammons getting put to bed by poisoned coffee and pinball ginger kids wielding cardboard knives in the faces of out of work actors.

So. Yeehah. They get in the town and their car gets "corned' so they can't drive out again. Blah de blah. Some red paint gets spilled. Drizzle Lyndhurst is just on damp mode, dragging everything down with his heavy wax gloom.

There's a good thirty minutes of fucking terrible toadstool haircut, jerkin and breeches wearing little acting school brats hopping and sqauwking around in a field. Woolen marmot children with names like Lamb Jenkins.
"Ayup bout t'be um sacrifice int' corn" the dialogue goes, like that.
Linda Hamilton gets crucified on a corn cross, but don't worry because neither she nor drizzle-Rodney die, instead one of the obviously early 20s enormo-children with a non speaking part decides he's had enough of Isaac's screaming chipmunk shit and puts him up on a cross. He is later eaten by a computer game that comes out of the ground and fucks him over the entire field of corn like a mewling firework.

In the book, He Who Walks Behnd The Rows is some vast supernatural presence with eyes, not really described, there as an ancient nightmare, a superstition from soil and root that takes children's souls. In this film, it's a purple cloud, it's some pink dry ice. They defeat it with a windmill or something, I don't know, I wasn't paying attention.

Nine sequels.

NOT WORTH IT

[Shit Good Nose]

Here's where I admit (although I HAVE definitely said it before in the past) that Sex Lives of the Potato Men is one of my guilty pleasures.  I'll freely and quickly acknowledge it's no masterpiece of any kind and I'll never for one second suggest that it's been misunderstood, but for stupid low brow gutter laughs it's absolutely fine.

[Custard]

My go-to on that score is Scary Movie 2, which I genuinely find hilarious, despite knowing it's dog tods

[Sebastian Cobb]

Children Of The Corn (1984)

Got this free when the guy in the corner shop gave my housemate a handful of dvd's out the papers (they only send the paper back for recycling and chuck the glossies and freebies).

Got about half way through and decided it was so shit and boring we sacked it off, and also snapped the dvd to prevent anyone else making the mistake of watching it.