Film/moving picture show you most recently watched

[Holden McGroin 4932]

Dredd

 

 

Went into this with low expectations, not sure if it was because of how bad the original one was with Stallone or the fact the reviews weren't great. Wouldn't say I came out of watching it thinking those low expectations were right as it was generally ok, but only something I would recommend to people who like your no nonsense action films without having to do much thinking whatsoever. Whereas something like The Raid (where this seems to have stolen a similar theme) I would recommend to anybody.

 

Karl Urban played Dredd how you wanted him to be played though. Obviously it's not the hardest role to act but he never once took the helmet off and was ruthless which is all you can ask for.

 

Olivia Thirlby was cute as anything too.

 

Some of the cinematography was good too, although the slow motion was a bit annoying by the end but that's what the story revolved around due to the drug that they were selling.

 

All in all one of those films you can put on to kill some time and not have to think about anything during. So will probably get re-watched that regard.

 

6/10

 

Dredd actually started filming 4 months before The Raid.

[Tooj 17]

Django Unchained

 

 

First of all being both a Tarantino fan and a fan of westerns I was ecstatic to hear about this film when I first heard about it so I went into it with high expectations. I'm not going to lie as soon as the film started and I heard the title music I was immediately :smitten: as it took me back to my very early childhood and being introduced to westerns by both my dad and grandad. So immediately it brought back to me some great memories as a child.

 

Tarantino has brought out another fantastic film in my eyes. The film is superbly acted all of the way through with Foxx, Waltz, Di Caprio and Jackson all playing outstanding characters in their own right. Foxx played the anti-hero fantastically (which is symbolic in Western history), Waltz as the eccentric Dr King Schultz had me in stitches at times, Di Caprio as the narcissistic Candie and Jackson plays the most hate filled "Uncle Tom" you will probably ever see. The casting was absolutely nailed.

 

As you would expect from a Tarantino film the cinematography was absolutely fantastic. From the vast landscapes of Southern America to the slow motion blood splatter shots in the shootouts. The soundtrack is excellent too (those old Western tunes send a shiver down my spine), although I was a bit unsure about the additions of some hip-hop in there. Was he trying to turn it blacksploitation or what?

 

Definitely a much better film than Inglorious and the buddy element between Waltz and Foxx just clicks despite their completely different characteristics and personalities in the film.

 

9/10

[The Fish 9045]

I was teetering with this, but because of Tooj's recommendation I'm going to go and see this on the weekend.

[Happy Face 29]

As you would expect from a Tarantino film the cinematography was absolutely fantastic. From the vast landscapes of Southern America to the slow motion blood splatter shots in the shootouts.

 

This is the one thing I've been thinking about in the week since watching it. Not the volume of blood flow in the film which I thought was balanced perfectly between nauseating in the scenes of racist abuse and cathartic in the revenge scenes. That sort of thing follows a long tradition from Sanjuro to The Wild Bunch to Kill Bill. What I've been thinking about is the symbolism and whether it was too heavy handed or not.

 

 

When Don Johnsons character Big Daddy (the KKK leader) is shot from his horse QT doesn't show that. He concentrates on the white horse as blood rains onto it's neck. He keeps following the horse long after Big Daddy has fallen from it. The suggestion being that the white world is stained by the blood of the racists that were in control in the past, but can keep moving forward, free of the shackles of racists, though they will always remain stained.

 

That's what I thought watching it anyway. And I thought it was a nice idea. But then QT repeated the trick when Django shoots one of the Brittle brothers from his horse. This time the blood splatter is onto the beautiful white flowers of the field rather than a beautiful white horse.

 

Then later in the film QT has Leo DiCaprio eating "white cake". Literally having his white cake and eating it. He offers some to King Schultz too but Schultz refuses to have his cake and eat it....and is soon killed, principals in tact, as a hero. There's nowt wrong with White cake. It's a tasty treat. But Dicaprio eating it taints it. and Schultz won't have it.

 

I assume I've missed others from the single viewing I've had, but that was enough to have me wondering whether it was too much or not. I didn't want to bring it up after my first viewing because I hadn't decided. But now I think it's pitched well. The way I've interpreted the imagery (and I assume others) gives the film more of a balance I think. Without it, there is only one bad black guy and one good white guy in the whole film. Perhaps if the setting was more in the north then there could have been some white slavery abolitionists thrown in, but it wasn't, so that wouldn't have been real for Mississippi before the civil war. The inclusion of these moments allows it to remain a film for black people, unapologetically showing their suffering and revelling in their winning freedom by force, without any concessions to white sensibility, as it should be. But those moments I wondered about tell us his film is well aware that white does not equal bad.

 

My only problem now is whether I should put that much thought into a film with the Fast Show style scene I complained about earlier. I still can't reconcile that.

 

[Park Life 70]

Django Unchained

 

 

First of all being both a Tarantino fan and a fan of westerns I was ecstatic to hear about this film when I first heard about it so I went into it with high expectations. I'm not going to lie as soon as the film started and I heard the title music I was immediately :smitten: as it took me back to my very early childhood and being introduced to westerns by both my dad and grandad. So immediately it brought back to me some great memories as a child.

 

Tarantino has brought out another fantastic film in my eyes. The film is superbly acted all of the way through with Foxx, Waltz, Di Caprio and Jackson all playing outstanding characters in their own right. Foxx played the anti-hero fantastically (which is symbolic in Western history), Waltz as the eccentric Dr King Schultz had me in stitches at times, Di Caprio as the narcissistic Candie and Jackson plays the most hate filled "Uncle Tom" you will probably ever see. The casting was absolutely nailed.

 

As you would expect from a Tarantino film the cinematography was absolutely fantastic. From the vast landscapes of Southern America to the slow motion blood splatter shots in the shootouts. The soundtrack is excellent too (those old Western tunes send a shiver down my spine), although I was a bit unsure about the additions of some hip-hop in there. Was he trying to turn it blacksploitation or what?

 

Definitely a much better film than Inglorious and the buddy element between Waltz and Foxx just clicks despite their completely different characteristics and personalities in the film.

 

9/10

 

That's a big thumbs up. Tempted now....Are you sure you haven't just bought into the familiar that QT recycles endlessly? You know the overstyled set up scenes you've seen hundreds of times before in other films?

[Happy Face 29]

It's much better than IB or DP. I prefer it to KB2 too, not KB though.

 

It's in that brand of the ridiculous though. Would love to see him go back to a JB, PF, RD style of realism rather than these comic strips. I had hoped IB would be a straight faced war film.

 

The thing about QT is he's trying to cover all his favourite genres. Gangster, Kung Fu, Western, War, Grindhouse, Car chase. His problem is whatever genre he is doing, they only fall into one of the two worlds he's often talked about in his films. The real world or his hyper reality.

 

The only other director that's attempted to jump around so much is Stanley Kubrick.....Gangster, Sci-fi, biblical epic, war, comedy, historical drama, horror....porn. But every film he did looked totally different. Embraced the form he was working with while also advancing it. QT has pulled that off a couple of times, but he doesn't so much move from one genre to another. He pulls the genre to where he is and filters it through his style.

[Park Life 70]

It's much better than IB or DP. I prefer it to KB2 too, not KB though.

 

It's in that brand of the ridiculous though. Would love to see him go back to a JB, PF, RD style of realism rather than these comic strips. I had hoped IB would be a straight faced war film.

 

The thing about QT is he's trying to cover all his favourite genres. Gangster, Kung Fu, Western, War, Grindhouse, Car chase. His problem is whatever genre he is doing, they only fall into one of the two worlds he's often talked about in his films. The real world or his hyper reality.

 

The only other director that's attempted to jump around so much is Stanley Kubrick.....Gangster, Sci-fi, biblical epic, war, comedy, historical drama, horror....porn. But every film he did looked totally different. Embraced the form he was working with while also advancing it. QT has pulled that off a couple of times, but he doesn't so much move from one genre to another. He pulls the genre to where he is and filters it through his style.

 

It's alaways the same film he makes.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Skyfall.

 

So Im a Bond fan so fairly easy pleased. Im also a fan of Daniel Craigs Bond and the new style of film however as I sit here reflecting on what Ive just watched Im feeling that the nods to past Bonds are getting a tad tiresome and Im almost feeling a little cheated out of the things I like (d) about Bond.

 

The gadgets, the women (even though it was always tongue in cheek), the action scenes all seemed poor, almost austerity Bond.

 

Even the baddie reminded me of a little bit cross Julian Clary.

 

6/10

[Happy Face 29]

I thought the action was the best bit about it. The crane on the train and the lift/skyscraper fight were mint.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

I thought the action was the best bit about it. The crane on the train and the lift/skyscraper fight were mint.

 

The train was good but you expect that in a Bond Opening. The Skyscraper fight was nowt.

[Happy Face 29]

 

The train was good but you expect that in a Bond Opening. The Skyscraper fight was nowt.

 

I thought the lift ride was exciting, the assassination intriguing and the fight in silhouette was gorgeous.

[Monkeys Fist 38917]

 

The gadgets, the women (even though it was always tongue in cheek), the action scenes all seemed poor, almost austerity Bond.

 

6/10

Stop whining. You voted the fuckers in.

[Tooj 17]

 

:thumbup:

[Dr Gloom 19879]

Skyfall.

 

So Im a Bond fan so fairly easy pleased. Im also a fan of Daniel Craigs Bond and the new style of film however as I sit here reflecting on what Ive just watched Im feeling that the nods to past Bonds are getting a tad tiresome and Im almost feeling a little cheated out of the things I like (d) about Bond.

 

The gadgets, the women (even though it was always tongue in cheek), the action scenes all seemed poor, almost austerity Bond.

 

Even the baddie reminded me of a little bit cross Julian Clary.

 

6/10

 

best film of the new generation of bonds imo

[Christmas Tree 3997]

I've been even more pissed about this today.

 

Casino Royale was fine telling how he started etc, but now it could really be any type of film.

 

50 years of Bond shouldn't be discarded so lightly. Jason Bournes and the like come and go, but Bond should be Bond.

 

Even our lass watched and enjoyed Skyfall and she's hated Bond for as long as we've been together.

[Brock Manson 0]

I watched Blade Runner last night. Been enjoying a bit of a sci fi phase[r] recently, and enjoyed District 9 and Super 8. Shame BR couldn't have been called BR7.

 

My problem with watching classic movies held in high regard is that they're often rather drab and dull affairs. It's probable that I'll never watch Citizen Kane because of this. BR though took the biscuit.

 

The only plus point of the film was that Harrison Ford was well-cast; he definitely gave a robotic performance to fit in with the is he/isn't he? aspect of the ending. Apart from that the pace was mind-numbingly slow, with too many pointless sweepy shots showing more often than not nothing in particular of interest. A very indulgent portrayal of Ridley Scott's philosophy on dystopian future that he's developed from the Dick novel (which I haven't read).

 

3/10. Nothing exciting or intriguing enough to warrant such an out and out borefest the movie turned out to be.

[Dr Gloom 19879]

Argo. Canny but bit Hollywood at the end. It was an interesting film based on a true story but there's NO way it unfolded like it did in the film with the fucking copper car chasing the plane down the runway.

 

Still, an enjoyable watch 7/10

[ewerk 26561]

Lawless - if you've seen any outlaw/gangster film then you've seen this. Completely formulaic.

 

4/10

[Brock Manson 0]

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

 

Absolutely batshit mental. Some bloke turns into a steampunk-esque iron man (complete with gargantuan drill penis). Japan.

[sammynb 2929]

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

 

Absolutely batshit mental. Some bloke turns into a steampunk-esque iron man (complete with gargantuan drill penis). Japan.

 

Saw this and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer back in the mid 90s at an indie cinema tripping off our heads - fucking bizarre doesn't even come close to describing it but I remember we couldn't stop talking about them for days.

 

Hugo: Almost didn't watch it, glad we did in the end. Nice bit of story telling by Scorsese.

Edited January 19, 2013 by sammynb

[Tooj 17]

Silver Linings Playbook

 

 

It follows around Patrick who has just spent 8 months in a mental institution and upon his release he is trying to reconcile with his estranged wife. This gets more complicated as he develops a hugely complex friendship with fellow depressive Tiffany.

 

Quirky, funny, uplifting, beautiful and somehow still manages to make you feel the pain and trauma the main characters are going through at the same time. I've read people saying this film was average and is just your typical rom-com that you have saw time and time again. I completely disagree with this sentiment and thought it was a wonderful film that had me on the edge of an emotional roller-coaster throughout.

 

There are some stellar performances throughout mainly from the two starts of the show Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Plus I think what adds to the aura this film possessed for me as I'm sure we all know people who have been impacted by mental health issues and this highlights what suffers are experiencing so really captivated me on that front.

 

Also as I'm sure has been mentioned in every review for this film Jennifer Lawrence looks utterly beautiful.

 

I really recommend that you go and see this and I feel it is worthy of the high praise that it has been receiving.

 

8.5/10

[JawD 31]

Also watched Django. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Watch it if you get a chance.

[Kid Dynamite 5968]

Here comes the boom. Terrible film saved only by the brilliant Bas Rutten

[Dr Gloom 19879]

Saw Django at the cinema yesterday. An enjoyable return to form by QT, if a bit self indulgent with the gore and overly long. The best scenes as always, were the long scenes of dialogue designed to build the tension. The exchange between De Caprio and Waltz for instance, or Waltz talking his way out of being shot a couple of times.

 

Some great performances but Samuel L Jackson stole it for me as the Uncle Tom.

 

[luckyluke 1]

Les Mis.

 

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Not really a fan of musicals (and was a bit put off by the bit they played on Kermode last week), but thought this was outstanding. The performances are great (even the much-maligned Crowe is ok) but Anne Hathaway is just staggering.