What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2024 Edition)

[Mobius]

It was widely publicised that it was a two-part film with the halves released six months apart, and with a trailer for part 3 after the credits.

Ah that's fair enough then, I didn't realise they were released so close together.

Yeah, we were more unhappy with the film being stupid, than the expected TBC at the end. Then, six months later, we were even more unhappy with the utter nonsensical thrown up on screen.

Haha I am not particularly looking forward to the 3rd one but I will watch it anyway

And it completely passed me by they did a fourth one a few years ago! So I'm curious how modern day Matrix movie works. I guess in Matrix world, mobile phones can just be never invented.

I've got to admit I've spent a fair bit of time in the last few days trying to make sense of the world and how it works. It's a cool idea, can see why it was so popular. I am guessing it's not entirely original though, probably inspired by the same novels as cyberpunk.

Shame it got co-opted  by David Icke and Andrew Tate

[samadriel]

I've got to admit I've spent a fair bit of time in the last few days trying to make sense of the world and how it works. It's a cool idea, can see why it was so popular. I am guessing it's not entirely original though, probably inspired by the same novels as cyberpunk.

It's famous for being a blatant ripoff of Grant Morrison's comic The Invisibles. Visually the whole green tint and robots call to mind Oshii's Ghost in the Shell movie from a few years prior.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
A directors cut that is hugely different. Loved it in '86 but I would've been booing with the test audiences if I'd seen "this". Now it's a great curio. The slow eating of Audrey is a great "what the hell were you thinking" scene. Then a parody of Patton followed by shot after shot of plants smashing through buildings.

I love Little Shop, it's my favourite musical, and though I knew the original ending was far more downbeat it wasn't until it was staged by semi-professional actors at a theatre close to where I live that I got to see how bleak it is.

That said, I love the Director's Cut! Maybe it's because some breathing space after Audrey and Seymour's fate, but the scenes of Audrey II and co going absolutely crazy are amazing. I'm glad both versions now exist, and when I rewatch Little Shop I tend to go with the original, but then jump to the invasion and pretend that while Audrey and Seymour survived, the rest of the world is still fucked!

[PlanktonSideburns]

Marry me?

I despise both of these films. How do you get on with Luca's other films?

What about Joanna Hogg?

Also, have you seen Afire from last year? It fits that genre you mention (that I also hate) but somehow I enjoyed it.

Don't make him watch any hogg for gods sake, he will be putting his boot through the screen and sending marks and Spencer the bill

Was similarly soothed by your review of that nonced on holiday film

[Minami Minegishi]

Don't make him watch any hogg for gods sake, he will be putting his boot through the screen and sending marks and Spencer the bill

Was similarly soothed by your review of that nonced on holiday film

I'm an inverted snob to a fault and I would enjoy someone else being as irritated by Hogg as me.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea me too tbh

[SteveDave]

Raw Deal

Filling in more blank spaces on my Arnold Schwarzenegger bingo card. This was just as enjoyable as "Commando". There were a few bits near the beginning where you could see him looking for his marks but overall 4/5

A Private Function

I saw this described as a comedy. Must've missed the funny bits. 1/5

[Dr Rock]

Raw Deal

Filling in more blank spaces on my Arnold Schwarzenegger bingo card. This was just as enjoyable as "Commando".

You're insane.

[SteveDave]

Please explain my insanity.

"You should not bake...and drink"

"When was the last time you had a good piss?"

"SHIT! I HATE THIS GAME!"

"The only way you'll end up lying next to me Max is if we're run down by the same car"

All solid gold. Also John Cena appears to have based his whole look on Arnold's in this.

[Famous Mortimer]

I've not read the article, but...are you disagreeing with the first bit (killer computer movies are bad) or the second bit (it's not technology that'll kill us, but the people controlling it)?

[Dr Rock]

Please explain my insanity.

"You should not bake...and drink"

"When was the last time you had a good piss?"

"SHIT! I HATE THIS GAME!"

"The only way you'll end up lying next to me Max is if we're run down by the same car"

All solid gold. Also John Cena appears to have based his whole look on Arnold's in this.

Not in the same league. Commando is one of the greatest films ever made.

[Blumf]

Not in the same league. Commando is one of the greatest films ever made.

Commando is an order of magnitude better than Raw Deal, but Raw Deal is comedy gold.

"What's the P stand for?"

"He mooolested, mooourdered and moooutilated her."

"Excuse me. Could you move to the side a little bit?"
"Your lights"
"Thank you"

[Mister Six]

Yeah, we were more unhappy with the film being stupid, than the expected TBC at the end. Then, six months later, we were even more unhappy with the utter nonsensical thrown up on screen.

You were! I sacked off the entire franchise after that nonsense second film.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I can't remember if I'd list Commando above or below Eraser.

[Mister Six]

I've got to admit I've spent a fair bit of time in the last few days trying to make sense of the world and how it works. It's a cool idea, can see why it was so popular. I am guessing it's not entirely original though, probably inspired by the same novels as cyberpunk.

As @samadriel says, it's a knock-off of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, or at least the start of it: a young lawbreaker is arrested by shades-wearing, besuited agents who initially appear to be from the government, but turn out to be representatives of unearthly forces of control and order that have kept humanity subjugated in a false reality for unknown millennia.

The young man is freed from his captors - who have some gross associated insect imagery - by a terrorist cell led by a bald man in black leather and round black sunglasses. Also in the team is a tomboyish young female martial artist who ultimately becomes the young man's love interest*.

The young man, it is believed, is a potential messianic figure who could be used by either the forces of order or their opponents to tip the balance in this war. The bald man gets his information on this subject from a female oracle figure.

The bald man explains that the cell is trying to free humanity from the forces of control. The young man is pulled out of the fake reality and into "real" reality to prove this. As part of his initiation, he is given a colourful drug and told to jump off a tall building - which he survives, confirming that "reality" is as the cell says it is. There is also a liquid mirror that moves as if living, and can flow across people's bodies, allowing them to travel outside "reality".

The terrorist cell attacks the forces of order, and their assaults are shown to be morally ambiguous (if very, very cool), with regular people being caught in the crossfire during the battles with the sinister agents.

Eventually, the bald man is captured by the enemy, tied to a chair and tortured for information. The young man leads an assault on the enemy base, which is located in an otherwise innocuous-looking city building, and rescues the bald man - and in doing so awakens his own innate powers.

Having rescued his mentor, the young man accepts his position as part of the cell, and potentially being the one who will free the human race.

Later, it turns out that both the forces of control and those of freedom are actually part of a larger balance - two processes comprising a larger order - that cannot be allowed to tip too far in either direction or risk everything falling apart, and that the young man is a key figure in that process.



* In the original Matrix scripts, one of the characters was also transgender, and there's a trans woman in The Invisibles too.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I kind of saw it as a hodgepodge of The World On a Wire/The Thirteenth Floor and Neuromancer. Which isn't an original thought either if I'm being honest.

[Mister Six]

Anyway, to get it back on topic, Mrs Six and I watched 2020 Netflix slop Love Marry Repeat a few days ago. We were lured in by the preview focusing heavily on Tim Key, and so massively disappointed when it turned out he and a bunch of other great performers (including Aisling Bea) were relegated to supporting roles and that the central characters were all boring or horrible or both.

There's sort of a Run Lola Run thing going on, with various different combinations of dinner table layouts leading to different events, but that's weirdly crammed in at the end of the film and rushed through so quickly that it feels less like the premise for the film and more like they just didn't know how to end it.

Apparently it's based on some French film, which I hope is better. If you just skip to all the bits with Key, Bea et al, it'll pass the time, I guess. And Eleanor Tomlinson is really beautiful.

TL:DR; watched a Netflix romcom, brought it upon myself.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Love Marry Repeat

Very disappointed to discover this wasn't a sexy sequel to Tom Cruise's Edge Of Tomorrow / Live Die Repeat, and I imagine I'd be the 10,000 person to make that joke if I looked on Letterboxd.

I saw this mentioned on CaB the other day but now can't find the appropriate thread, but thank you to whoever did write about it:

Time Masters (1982) - French animation from Rene Laloux of Fantastic Planet fame and Moebius of being Moebius fame, this launches straight in to the action as after his parents are killed a young boy is left alone on a planet, but he can communicate with the crew of a spaceship who plan to rescue him. It sometimes feels like you're watching number sixteen of a twenty episode series as none of the characters are really given much depth but one of them might briefly take centre stage before disappearing, though I think that's by design as it hints at various themes concerning the impact we make given how we live our lives. Either way the plot's easy to follow most of the time, and it's an unpredictable and nicely weird delight. 8.1/10

[Egyptian Feast]

The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008) Dr Scully races against time and battles Catholics to save a child with a rare condition, while Mulder desperately tries to convince her that psychic nonce Billy Connolly is correct about some things. Meanwhile, The Daily Mail's US reporters are missing out on a story so volatile Paul Dacre would have a massive stroke as soon as his beady eyes hit the copy.

Spoiler alert

Russian Frankenstein abducts young women to use as body donors for gay foreign men!

[close]

Not great, but quite watchable. I can see why Mulder passionately defending the reputation of a man who buggered 37 choirboys to a sceptical Scully was no match at the US box office against The Dark Knight (it was the 114th most successful film of 2008). Sadly, anyone interested in the Lorenzo's Oil B-story had to wait another few years to (probably not) find out if Scully actually cured that kid before buggering off on holiday post-credits.

[Steve Faeces]

First Cow (2019, Mubi). I had been putting off watching this well regarded modern Western as the previous film I saw by the director, Old Joy, I found too slow for my tastes and I didn't care about the characters. Not the case with this one. Beautiful to look at and a warm and engaging story of friendship and survival. Good casting too. 

Straight after I watched Raining Stones (1993, DVD). I've been working through Ken Loach films that I haven't seen, which has been in the main time very well spent, and despite this being highly regarded and a Cannes Prize winner I don't rate it as highly as others clearly do. That being said Bruce Jones and Ricky Tomlinson are excellent in it and some good jokes and set ups in the first third of the film.

Spoiler alert

I found the reaction of the priest at the end to the death of the gangster and the burning of the loan book completely implausible. There is also a scene where Bob finds work as a bouncer and catches Tommy's daughter and a dealer with drugs, I assume from the location and period in time that it's MDMA, in the club. I found the reaction of Bob to be unconvincing and the whole scene a bit moralistic, although I have no idea what Jim Allen or Ken Loach's views on drugs were then or are now.

[close]

[Sebastian Cobb]

First Cow (2019, Mubi). I had been putting off watching this well regarded modern Western as the previous film I saw by the director, Old Joy, I found too slow for my tastes and I didn't care about the characters. Not the case with this one. Beautiful to look at and a warm and engaging story of friendship and survival. Good casting too. 

Straight after I watched Raining Stones (1993, DVD). I've been working through Ken Loach films that I haven't seen, which has been in the main time very well spent, and despite this being highly regarded and a Cannes Prize winner I don't rate it as highly as others clearly do. That being said Bruce Jones and Ricky Tomlinson are excellent in it and some good jokes and set ups in the first third of the film.

Spoiler alert

I found the reaction of the priest at the end to the death of the gangster and the burning of the loan book completely implausible. There is also a scene where Bob finds work as a bouncer and catches Tommy's daughter and a dealer with drugs, I assume from the location and period in time that it's MDMA, in the club. I found the reaction of Bob to be unconvincing and the whole scene a bit moralistic, although I have no idea what Jim Allen or Ken Loach's views on drugs were then or are now.

[close]

Spoiler alert

Drug Addiction and addicts are dealt with quite compassionately in My Name is Joe and Riff Raff, although it's conceivable that they have contempt for the dealers and pushers preying on the vulnerable I suppose. Another reading could be that Bob's a middle-aged man who isn't part of that culture at all and has fully bought into the Sun panic headlines that were going around at the time.

I didn't really find the priest stuff that unconvincing myself, it seems like the priest knew just how much of a parasite he is, and a lot of his congregation could've been in hock to him.

[close]

Although I like the film, and as you say Bruce and Tomlinson are great, it seems to have a bit more hammy acting than some of his other efforts, not to the point of it being a problem though.

[Steve Faeces]

Spoiler alert

Another reading could be that Bob's a middle-aged man who isn't part of that culture at all and has fully bought into the Sun panic headlines that were going around at the time.

[close]

Hadn't considered this and read in that context makes more sense.

[Famous Mortimer]

Time Barbarians

One of three "warriors from ye olden days go to modern day LA" movies from the same era, along with "Beastmaster 2" and "The Lords of Magick". Deron McBee (an American Gladiator, and was in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation) is the good guy, a barbarian king by the name of Doran, who's just about finished defending his tribe - 20 people in some tents - from generic masked villains.

Also, a wizard gave him a crystal which will protect his people, but he gives it to his wife and she loses it while going for a bath in a river with all the other hot ladies of the tribe, then she's captured, possibly raped (it's difficult to tell, with the crotches being so far apart) and then murdered. The guy who steals it gets transported to modern day LA, and as soon as Doran finds the wizard and asks for her a spell, he's off there too.

This happens at around the halfway mark, leaving this looking like two different 45-minute movies, with the same hero and villain, but otherwise unrelated. Case in point - Doran rescues a TV reporter as soon as he appears in LA, and they're having sex the same night, despite him having found his dead wife perhaps as little as 48 hours ago.

Full of that no-contractions style of speech that people think is medieval, but not full of interesting situations and fun action. As boring as a movie about time-travelling barbarians could possibly be.

[SteveDave]

Not in the same league. Commando is one of the greatest films ever made.

I'm watching "Red Heat" tonight

[Blumf]

I'm watching "Red Heat" tonight

Not as much fun as Raw Deal, but worth a punt.

[ProvanFan]

Time Barbarians

Leave this land... and never return!

(only bit I remember)

[SteveDave]

Red Heat

An alright film dragged down by Jim Belushi. Everything he said and did brought the concept of filmmaking into disrepute (apart from his "Did you get him?" after Schwarzenegger shoots the baddie at the end weirdly)

Maybe my hatred of him is purely because he looks like the Bow and Arrow man from the Avengers. 1/5

[dissolute ocelot]

Red Heat

An alright film dragged down by Jim Belushi. Everything he said and did brought the concept of filmmaking into disrepute (apart from his "Did you get him?" after Schwarzenegger shoots the baddie at the end weirdly)

Maybe my hatred of him is purely because he looks like the Bow and Arrow man from the Avengers. 1/5

I quite enjoy Red Heat. It is one of Arnie's best comedy performances, and I can tune out Belushi who I don't think is any worse than most sidekicks in 80s action movies (a very low bar admittedly). I'd put it maybe slightly above Raw Deal but below End of Days, and obviously not in the same universe as Commando.

[Egyptian Feast]

Red Heat

An alright film dragged down by Jim Belushi. Everything he said and did brought the concept of filmmaking into disrepute

Nicely put. I know he's supposed to be obnoxious, but they overdo it and he's such a massive cunt it makes the film hard to watch. It's a shame because Arnie is really good, but he can't save the movie.

The only main character I can remember hating more (that you're supposed to be rooting for, obvs) is Don Murray in Bus Stop, a loud and dumb but highly aggressive cowpoke who terrorises poor Marilyn Monroe for 90 minutes, despite her clearly desperate attempts to escape him, until she eventually gives up and throws her life away for him. He was such a relentless danger I would probably have been happier if James Belushi had shown up at the end and swept her away. I wanted a sequel beginning with an extremely graphic farming accident and a relieved widow reacting like Nicole Kidman walking away from her attorney's office post divorce settlement.

[rjd2]

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters 9/10

Yeah this was wild. Japanese film based on a famous author who as time progresses embraces hyper masculinity and fascism, so much so he sets up his own personal army to restore the supposed dignity of Japan. Paul Schrader has some misses in his career but very much on with this, astonishing visually, banger soundtrack from Philip Glass and phenomenal ending and still processing it tbh.