The Movie Preview, Review, & Recommendation Thread pt. II

Just come back from the Queen biopic. Pretty excellent and glad I made the effort. Spot on casting and script kept up a good pace.
 
Watched Phantom Thread for the first time last night. What a peculiar film.

Liked the Bristol, not seen one for ages...
 
I'm watching The Natural here at the airport. Robert Redford is middle aged. Glenn close is young. I always saw her as an elder statesman. Kim Bassinger is young and hot. Super huge lapels, low gorges and mismatched tie and lapel widths.
 
Fwiffo said:
I'm watching The Natural here at the airport. Robert Redford is middle aged. Glenn close is young. I always saw her as an elder statesman. Kim Bassinger is young and hot. Super huge lapels, low gorges and mismatched tie and lapel widths.
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Such a great movie
 
Watched for the first time the Neil Simon scripted After The Fox starring Peter Sellers and directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1966. Whilst dated, it's still immensely enjoyable, especially Sellers and Victor Mature doing his best Dean Martin impression.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
Watched for the first time the Neil Simon scripted After The Fox starring Peter Sellers and directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1966. Whilst dated, it's still immensely enjoyable, especially Sellers and Victor Mature doing his best Dean Martin impression.
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Nice clothes, too.

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The Photographer of Mauthausen about Francisco Boix's time in the Nazi concentration camps and attempts to keep the photographic evidence with negatives so that they could bare witness after the war:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Boix

An exceptional film and you see some of the photographs he actually saved at the end of the film. Sadly, he died age 30 of kidney failure as the Wiki page shows.
 
Just saw the Netflix movie "The Highwaymen." It had been critically acclaimed. For those who don't know about it, it deals with Capt. Frank Hamer's trackdown and killing of Bonnie and Clyde. Although closer to the truth than the !967 classic "Bonnie and Clyde," I still found it inaccurate, bunk-filled and somewhat tedious. Since we don't have Netflix, I prevailed upon some kindly neighbors to let me watch it. I had to apologize to them afterwards.
 
Jan Libourel said:
Just saw the Netflix movie "The Highwaymen." It had been critically acclaimed. For those who don't know about it, it deals with Capt. Frank Hamer's trackdown and killing of Bonnie and Clyde. Although closer to the truth than the !967 classic "Bonnie and Clyde," I still found it inaccurate, bunk-filled and somewhat tedious. Since we don't have Netflix, I prevailed upon some kindly neighbors to let me watch it. I had to apologize to them afterwards.
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It got great reviews but everyone ive talked to said it was boring and dull
 
Rambo said:
It got great reviews but everyone ive talked to said it was boring and dull
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I was considering watching that last night, but had a feeling it would be a dull outing. You've also got the classic Badlands in the Bonnie & Clyde mode. Ended up watching The Angel's Share, well worth watching, I nearly stopped when I realised it was by Ken Loach. I've lost interest in his oeuvre since he came out as a full-on communist revolutionary and supporter of BDS, with the exception of his own films. He did a good job managing to not let politics and social justice commentary overwhelm the film:



Fits in well with the Scottish comedies from the 80s: Gregory's Girl and Restless Natives.
 
Has anyone actually finished The Romanoffs?

I have it on for a bit from week to week and to be honest it strikes me mostly as cameos for Weiner's old Mad Men crew.
 
After all the endless praise of Avengers Endgame I went back to watch Avengers Infinity War for the context before the latest movie. Why do all Avengers and most Marvel movies seem to be one violent action sequence after another?
 
Because otherwise the majority of the audience would be asking why there isn't one violent action sequence after another
 
I haven't seen all of the Marvel movies but, of the ones that I have seen, I have generally preferred the "smaller" movies that focus on one main character or on a few of the characters, rather than on the whole team.

I've found that those movies are generally a bit quieter and that, although there are fights, there is often more character development (unsurprising, really, since there are usually only a few characters to concentrate on) and fewer massive, hyperkinetic action scenes.

I really enjoyed Ant-Man for those reasons.
 
ballmouse said:
Because otherwise the majority of the audience would be asking why there isn't one violent action sequence after another
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Perhaps so. I simply find it annoying people elevate this slew of Marvel movies into some mythical folklore. If people treated it like Transformers then I wouldn't go into them expecting a higher meaning.
 
Journeyman said:
I haven't seen all of the Marvel movies but, of the ones that I have seen, I have generally preferred the "smaller" movies that focus on one main character or on a few of the characters, rather than on the whole team.

I've found that those movies are generally a bit quieter and that, although there are fights, there is often more character development (unsurprising, really, since there are usually only a few characters to concentrate on) and fewer massive, hyperkinetic action scenes.

I really enjoyed Ant-Man for those reasons.
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Leading up to End Game there was a cinema here running all XX number of Marvel movies. Reckon it was 40 something of them. It was a 2 plus day marathon and I remember this radio DJ interviewing this girl at intervals to see how she was doing. I can't imagine spending that much time on my own redemption and salvation much less on Marvel comic book characters.
 
Fwiffo said:
Perhaps so. I simply find it annoying people elevate this slew of Marvel movies into some mythical folklore.
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It's certainly not high culture, but I do think that it's a significant cinematic achievement.

Not all of the Marvel movies are great, but they made a heck of a lot of movies in the span of ten or eleven years, and they did a really good job in terms of creating a particular "universe" and tying in a whole lot of disparate characters and story lines.

I do think that Marvel deserves praise for that, particularly when you consider what a load of utter crap most of the Star Wars movies have been, apart from the original trilogy and perhaps Rogue One.

Fwiffo said:
Leading up to End Game there was a cinema here running all XX number of Marvel movies. Reckon it was 40 something of them.
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I think that there are 22 movies to date, including Endgame. I haven't seen all of them, and have only seen a few in the cinema - I've caught most of them on Netflix (before Marvel/Disney broke off the relationship) or on DVD.
 
Star Wars being owned again by Disney. Funny you mention Rogue One. Wasn't that the Star Wars with the depressing ending like Empire strikes back?
 
The new Ted Bundy film on Netflix is worth checking out. The actor nails Bundy's mannerisms, although not his chameleon shape shifter abilities.

Watched Midnight Run the De Niro outing from 1988. Haven't seen the film since then and whilst dated, it holds up well. Happy days the late 80s, even for those of who just had a glimpse and sweet taste.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
The new Ted Bundy film on Netflix is worth checking out. The actor nails Bundy's mannerisms, although not his chameleon shape shifter abilities.

Watched Midnight Run the De Niro outing from 1988. Haven't seen the film since then and whilst dated, it holds up well. Happy days the late 80s, even for those of who just had a glimpse and sweet taste.
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As someone who never lived through Ted Bundy what is the appeal of seeing a serial killer on screen?
 
Fwiffo said:
As someone who never lived through Ted Bundy what is the appeal of seeing a serial killer on screen?
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The pathology of these pyscho killers is intriguing and in the case of Ted Bundy he was the first serial killer to have groupies. Now we know that a certain type of woman gets turned on by the sexual violence of their partners against other women. Hence they all have groupies sending them love letters in prison and on death row.

The good thing now, with some exceptions, is that DNA and forensic science means that serial killers are likely to be captured within a short period of time of commencing their killing. There was one here last week: stabbed to death a woman walking her dog on Sunday, on Tuesday he stabbed to death a couple walking their dog somewhere else in Holland and then they caught him on Wednesday.
 
In other news I watched Black Hawk Down on Netflix. I still think it's one of the best shot action movies even though it's from ....corrected 2000 or 2001.
 
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^ Black Hawk Down is good - plus it's Eric Bana's first outing in a Hollywood film, after he made his name in Australian comedy and playing Australian gangster Mark "Chopper" Reid.

Speaking of Netflix, I recently watched "The Brothers Grimsby", with Sacha Baron-Cohen. Extremely silly and with some very obscene humour, but quite enjoyable. However, it did very badly at the box office, particularly in the US. Reviewers apparently thought that the comedy was "too British" and that it lacked the appeal of Baron-Cohen's former outings.
 
Black Hawk Down had a number of prominent actors. Sort of like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan - it spawned a lot of stars. Except for Josh Hartnett. Not sure what happened to him.

My mate is a Russian born in Kazakhstan and we used to go out hitting on women by doing a routine where I introduce him and relate him to Borat. Sadly Borat has no relevance to anyone below 30 now.
 
Started watching the 2015 film of J.G. Ballard's High-Rise. Whilst it's clearly a dystopian architectural brutalist nightmare, it's uncomfortable to watch as they have enough 1970s elements for it to feel a realistic portrayal of elements of the time. Well worth watching, but I'm only watching it in small doses less I get bad dreams!
 


Thomas Barrow has aged or gained weight or something. I almost didn't recognise him. Henry Talbot doesn't seem to be living at Downton anymore.

It doesn't seem like the Crawleys have fallen on tough times. They have even more domestic staff than before.
 



Caught this over the weekend after not seeing in in many years.

It tells the story of a black American solider having an affair with a married white woman in London during WW2. Very solid flick.
4/5.
 
^Kerry Fox - I hadn't even thought of her in years. Good actress.

I watched this recently and enjoyed it, although I think it could have perhaps been structured slightly better. At times it was a bit like an uneasy mix between John Wick and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but still worth watching. Theron was really good.

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Blackhawk Down does a good job of showing the confusion sensory distortion that happens in a gun battle.

I’m waiting for this one with the rest of the family. My mum’s cousin was killed in the battle, leading an APC charge to rescue the encircled diggers. It will be weird seeing a family member portrayed in a movie.

 
^Looks interesting. I had an uncle there, but he passed away a decade or so back.

Interesting to see the mix of SLRs and M16s - I would have thought that everyone would have been using the SLRs back in 1966, or did it perhaps depend upon a soldier's role or rank?
 
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From around 1965 right through to the switch to the F88, the M16 was in service for scouts, cavalry and infantry officers - largely replacing the ineffective F1 sub machine gun.

I don’t know how the initial procurement was justified- probably something at the sharp end. Certainly, it was a an added logistical problem - yet another caliber to manage.

When I went to Puckupunyal in ‘89, the wusses who were having trouble shooting and all the women were allowed to train on some old Viet Nan era M16s before qualifying on the SLR to graduate. I saw a few in my travels around the army, but never got to shoot one (always wanted to, growing up on my dad’s Viet Nam war stories) in the ADF.
 
Interesting - looks like there's an SLR leaning up against the tree in the foreground, but he's holding an M16.

It's getting away from the thread topic, but you might enjoy this article on the botched development of the M16:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

The AR-15, upon which the M16 was based, was designed by the legendary Eugene Stoner - but his original design was taken and made far less reliable and less effective by an armed forces committee.
 
Dropbear said:
Blackhawk Down does a good job of showing the confusion sensory distortion that happens in a gun battle.
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As in someone screams contact and people fire indiscriminately in that direction?
 
Fwiffo said:
As in someone screams contact and people fire indiscriminately in that direction?
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That’s definitely a part of it.

And often you’re all shooting in the wrong direction because who can tell what direction the contact came from?
 
Rocketman the Elton John biopic - rather splendid and he did good job of laying his psyche out for movie length dissection and resolution. The musical elements are very tastefully and intelligently done.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
Rocketman the Elton John biopic - rather splendid and he did good job of laying his psyche out for movie length dissection and resolution. The musical elements are very tastefully and intelligently done.
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Overweight gay drama queen and militant Remainer.

His music has not aged well either.
 
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