The Film Thread

[Ginko]

Decided to watch The Lobster after listening to a podcast with Colin Farrell as part of his promoting the film. 

I enjoyed it. It's definitely a weird little film and runs the risk of being a bit pretentious, but it pokes fun at relationships and the social constructs surrounding them. It's dark, but a couple of moments made me laugh out loud. Farrell and Weisz played their parts well. 

One you have to be in the right sort of mood for, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea for sure, but it was different and enjoyable - 7.5/10

[PieFacE]

Watched "It Follows"  yesterday and really liked it apart from that characters just being really **** stupid.  

[AVFCDAN]

8 hours ago, Ginko said:

Decided to watch The Lobster after listening to a podcast with Colin Farrell as part of his promoting the film. 

I enjoyed it. It's definitely a weird little film and runs the risk of being a bit pretentious, but it pokes fun at relationships and the social constructs surrounding them. It's dark, but a couple of moments made me laugh out loud. Farrell and Weisz played their parts well. 

One you have to be in the right sort of mood for, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea for sure, but it was different and enjoyable - 7.5/10

Nerdist?

Thought he came across really well on that to be honest, I had already seen the film though and didn't much rate it at all. I like independent films a lot more than blockbusters but this was too far out there for me.

[Ginko]

Yup, I listen to the Nerdist podcasts quite a lot and heard Farrell's the other day. He comes across as a very sensitive, deep and articulate guy. I really warmed to him.

He did an interview a few years ago with Jonothan Ross on his TV show and he was talking about some of the issues he's had and the sex tape of him that was released. He came across the same way then, very unusual for someone in his position to be so open and thoughtful about things. 

But yeah, I can see why some wouldn't like The Lobster. The purposefully wooden acting for one, though for me it just adds to the comedy.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Ginko

[The_Rev]

Watched John Wick the other day, really stylish action movie but the premise is bananas.  Not since someone pissed on the Big Lebowski's rug have I known such an hilarious reason for death and violence. 

[Chindie]

Watched the Revenant last night.

Beautiful, worthy, effectively the same plot as John Wick with a more developed villain. But blimey... that film is at least half an hour longer than it needed to be, and DiCaprio is completely unbelievable in that role. He's lucky there's barely any dialogue for him because his accent is comical, ludicrous. His performance is like a stunt, yeah he does some grim stuff, but the actual performance is pointedly DiCaprio acting in a role. Whereas his supporting lead, Hardy, even with a slightly overblown accent himself, is believable as the hardened ruthless bastard completely driven by a selfish interest.

Overall I enjoyed it but it's pretty flawed, and DiCaprio's Oscar is a Scorsese style 'we've got to acknowledge him now' award. His performance in Wolf of Wall Street is 10 times this.

[V01]

Watched X-men Apocalypse, fairly average really. 

Spoiler

Lots of set up for Mr Sinister/Hellfire club in the next movie

Spoiler

I did enjoy seeing J-Law getting strangled though

Perv talk incoming:

Psylocke all day long, I'd tongue punch her bum.

[Ginko]

Aye, Olivia Munn 

She used to present on G4, a TV channel (since been decommissioned) dedicated to video games and other nerdy stuff. She's a self-confessed comic geek.

[darrenm]

Deadpool. Absolutely brilliant. Surprised they were brave enough to make it but it so works.

[Zatman]

because of the cast surprisingly The Nice Guys one of the funniest films Ive seen in a long time, not biggest Gosling fan but he very good in that and great chemistry with Crowe and actress that played his daughter

[Designer1]

Very enjoyable documentary. More about the fantastic team that was assembled rather than Clough, which was fine as i've read/seen pretty much everything about him anyway.

It was also another reminder of how much more I enjoyed football in those days compared to now

[mykeyb]

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - If you like those kind of films it well worth a watch. I enjoyed it even though it was a Michael Bay film.

[choffer]

2 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

I enjoyed it even though it was a Michael Bay film.

Paging @Designer1

 

[AVFCDAN]

Neighbors 2

Have to say this one caught me by surprise, for two reasons really.

Firstly it's actually better as a sequel than the original, that's quite rare these days even if the original hardly set a benchmark. 

Secondly it actually is self aware and pokes fun at the cliches and stereotypes you often find within these genres of films. The net result is that it's not as funny as the first but actually more thought provoking. Most of this is realised through Zac Efrons character who despite being the coolest kid at school and in college now finds himself trying to get by on looks while his friends have surpassed him, it's actually his best performance since the paperboy and basically holds this film together.

by no means a classic but a solid 7/10 film I thought.

 

[Chindie]

Saw Warcraft earlier. Mostly because we wanted to see how dreadful it was and get some gallows humour out of it.

It's not terrible.

There's the makings of a decent movie in there. It's problems, however, are many. The film feels like you've watching a film on TV and your constantly making tea for everyone else and have the runs. It's a film that feels like you're getting the brief snippets between trips to the kettle and loo. But in actuality you've been sat there for half an hour and the movie is just chucking shit at you and the editor cut it by jumping up and down on the film and taping a few bits back together roughly in order. The opening act is literally a parade of jump cut scenes with really clunking exposition.

The downside of this is it's hard to follow the details. Combined with ropey sound in my screening I never felt comfortable with the details. I didn't struggle to follow it at all, the plot would leave room on a Rizla, but the details of things are not explained at all well. I wasn't sure if significant players names until the finale in some cases, I didn't understand the wider rules of the world which play reasonably important parts in the story, and whilst you can obviously deduce things the films reliant on you being sure of yourself from pretty meagre pickings. For instance, the orcs in the movie have access to a power that effectively kick starts the plot. You'll quickly be told it's bad, but we know nothing else about it. You never quite feel sure of yourself and its entirely because the movie appears to have been edited after a terrier had eaten most of the first act.

The plot is basic and feels bizarrely low key. A climatic moment in the finale is casually tossed aside and has very little weight somehow. Twists are telegraphed from the instant a character appears. The plot has ambitions of having a worthy point, but the nature of it means it can't quite manage it.

Acting standards are all over the place. The human cast is hopeless. Travis Fimmel puts in a bizarre performance every time his mouth opens, Dominic Cooper is obviously contemplating sacking his agent, Ben Foster is disgracefully bad. Meanwhile the various orcs are doing good work, believable as they can with almost panto stuff.

There's an inescapable problem with the look of the thing. The CGI is great, and needs to be. Main orc is excellent in all facets. But... it's really really silly looking. I have an incredible capacity for goofiness. I can take really dumb material seriously. This crosses the line. It's too silly. It's too generic. It's pulp fantasy by the numbers and it can't escape being hokey. The armour is too dressy, too cosplay, the environments too cartoonish, magic too earnestly dungeons and dragons... and so on. I just couldn't quite get past that. It's refreshing that it's not a gritty mediaeval tinged fantasy, where everything is grimy and brown, like everything became after LOTR turned up and Jackson blew the genre open, but it equally doesn't quite work. It's nearly kitsch.

But it isn't dreadful. There's fun there. The plot is fine in its greater dealings. There is half a message there of wider meaning. It's got some funny lines and decent action, though nowhere enough. It works as a franchise starter and as a separate entity (though I'd question whether there's a chance at a franchise really). It didn't outstay its welcome, though equally it needs another 30 minutes in it.

Expecting something dreadful, I got something that I'd happily watch an extended cut of. But I don't think I could ever love. It's too silly for that. And that's saying something.

[theboyangel]

Watched and totally enjoyed The Big Short last night.

Strangely a film about a group of blokes betting against the US mortgage crash of 2008 is thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable.

Steve Carrell also gives a brilliant performance, along with Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and a decent cameo from Brad Pitt.

[Xela]

Legend - thought Tom Hardy was excellent although his Ronnie does venture into an almost comic caricature at times 

[PaulC]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

Legend - thought Tom Hardy was excellent although his Ronnie does venture into an almost comic caricature at times 

Maureen Flanaghan, a close friend of the family,  thought Tom Hardy did a fabulous job as both Ronnie and Reggie. 

[tonyh29]

The Nice Guys tonight

 

havent laughed out loud so much in a film since ... We'll probably since Deadpool...

went in with kinda low expectations , came out having  laughed a lot , and not just me and my mate being the only ones laughing for change , the whole cinema was laughing ....

grest fun , even  makes you like Russell Crowe and it can't be often you see that written in a sentence 

Angourie Rice looks like a star in the making , she steal the show against some very tough competition from Crowe and Gosling 

 

Def  one one to go and see if you like a light hearted dark humour with a little bit of porn thrown in 

[hogso]

The girly is a great huge fan of the X Men movies, and having only seen the first one, with a new one in the cinema, we watched all of them (except the Wolverine spin offs) and then went to see Apocalypse.

I have very fond memories of the cartoon, so unlike most other comic book movies I have some prior knowledge of the characters - so much so I knew right off the bat who pretty much everyone was, including Jubilee who I don't think is even named in the latest film, and I found the lack of Gambit a bit disappointing. Seems he is in Wolverine though and is having his own film shortly, however.

The films as a series is OK. The first two films are great, the one with both the old and new casts is good too. The others, I could take or leave.

I enjoyed Apocalypse in parts - Quicksilver is a very enjoyable character, whom I would like to see in a more prominent role or in his own movie. It seems that may come to pass given the backstory with him and Magneto that wasn't fully explored.

It did lead me to read up the copyrights for the character. I was sure there was a guy like him in the second Avengers movie, and indeed there is, they're just different takes on the character as the copyright is basically 'shared'. But the Avengers one is dead, I think, and X Men didn't have his twin sister, which Avengers does...yeah, a little confusing. Any other circumstances like that I should be aware of in other Marvel (or DC for that matter) movies?