[Film] Film 2023

[Uncle Spielberg]

I think virtually every director has a list of charachters stories and books. The Fabelman's original, it is my life story and very good. Spielberg is now making films he wants to like West Side Story as he always wanted to make a musical and loved it and The Fabelmans both which barely broke even at the box office

His greatest films apart from Schindler's List are ET The Extraterresrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saving Private Ryan imo, all original

 

[Stat Brother]

Blimey Charlie - last night I started watching Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
Proper proper shithouse.

 

[herecomesaregular]

I think virtually every director has a list of charachters stories and books. The Fabelman's original, it is my life story and very good. Spielberg is now making films he wants to like West Side Story as he always wanted to make a musical and loved it and The Fabelmans both which barely broke even at the box office

His greatest films apart from Schindler's List are ET The Extraterresrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saving Private Ryan imo, all original

Tried to watch this yet again, for the umpteenth time, and failed to stick with it. I can't name another film like it, it's just so deathly dull I can't get through it. Conversely, if ET or SPR pop up on tv I always end up watching them.

 

[Acker79]

Scrapper
This was this evening's secret screening at Cineworld. I was relieved it wasn't Sound of Freedom, but this was very much more of a picturehouse movie than a cineworld one. A low budget, naturalistic drama about an independent young girl who we meet getting by on her own after her mother has died, using the local shop worker to record phrases to fake an uncle looking after her, until her dad shows up and then it's about their reconnection and grief.

Narratively there isn't much surprising or particularly original, but there are some interstitials that are verge on Wes Anderson-esque, sticking out on the mike leigh style bulk of the film. The young girl does well to largely carry the movie, and I was impressed by Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) who is starting to develop his own distinct identity rather than being 'that guy that looks a bit like George Mackay'.

Generally a cute, decent movie that may not find its audience at cineworld/odeon.

 

[Acker79]

I just watched this short from the same director

I just discovered he directed the murderous tyre movie 'Rubber'.



I've seen it, it was utterly bizarre. The trailer may make it seem more pacy than it is, with a lot of the funny parts quite spread out, so there are long periods of 'wtf?' in between the occasional burst of funny.

 

[Acker79]

The Blackening
Horror/Comedy about a group of black friends who go to stay in a cabin in the woods (or is it a house) as a juneteenth anniversary celebration years after they were last all together at college. They discover a racist seemingly old board game (albeit one that had modern questions) and a video forcing them to play to save the life of one of the group.

Like a lot of (most?) horror/comedies, it is not the scariest horror or the funniest comedy, but it was still a good time, playing with general movie tropes as well as black movie tropes and black culture. Some references were lost on me, though I'm not entirely sure how much is due to being white and not aware of the black culture, and how much was to do with being British and not aware of some parts of american or african american culture, but not enough for it to be much of an issue. The killer's identity is somewhat obvious, there is a good start pre-credits, then a bit of a lull as we are introduced to the main characters and get to know them and the relationships between them, then it picks up when the game kicks off, and ultimately I rather enjoyed it.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Barbie. Worthing Dome. 80% sell out.

As a 60 year old Man I never thought I would be going on my own to see Barbie but you know what I am glad I did as it is great

As a great follower of the Cinema I needed to as it is an Enigma. Big fan of Robbie and Gosling and they were both excellent. It is a fun film, much needed atm, great to look at with a strong set of songs and musical score

It is funny, sad and quite profound in a simplistic way with strong messages. It will go over the head of anyone under 12 but about female identity and male identity and their respective roles in a made up world and real world, quite moving in places

All in all it really is a little treasure

I give it an 85 out of 100

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

I just discovered he directed the murderous tyre movie 'Rubber'.



I've seen it, it was utterly bizarre. The trailer may make it seem more pacy than it is, with a lot of the funny parts quite spread out, so there are long periods of 'wtf?' in between the occasional burst of funny.

Just seen this & you're spot on with your review...

The Car/Christine meet Scanners and it's totally bonkers...Great fun

 

[Acker79]

Blue Beetle
One of the films that sits somewhere between the previous DCEU/Snyderverse and the upcoming James Gunn DCU (I suspect it will depend on how popular it is). The films plays it safe is this respect. Names get mentioned in various fashions, but no guest appearances commiting to any movie universe so it felt more of a standalone than any superhero movie for quite some time.

The DC character Blue Beetle has various incarnations. The classic is Ted Kord, billionaire genius who uses his money and intellect to become a beetle-themed superhero. In the mid 2000s when the had the New 52 reboot, they introduced Jaime Reyes. Reyes' story is familiar to any fans of The Guyver - a anga comic series. A an alien device (in this instance, a beetle scarab-like one) bonds with our hero and becomes a symbiotic suit that gives him powers and weapons that he uses to fight crime.

This film is based on the jaimie Reyes version, though Ted Kord hangs over the story. His company, being run by his sister following his disappearance, has turned to weapons development and wants to use the scarab to develop their own bodysuit weapons to sell to armies. Ted's daughter steals the device and it ends up in Jaimie's hands and the story goes how you would think.

Jaimie is surrounded by his family, providing him with a structure and motivation to become the hero he is destined to become.

It felt smaller than superheroes have become. It's not the world he's trying to save, it's not a multiverse collapsing on itself, it's not some galactic big bad that needs a team up. It was the evil head of a company and his henchmen that needed to be beaten, and the girl that needed saving. Comparatively small fries.

It was decent. The throw back nature was cute and a little refreshing, the family were an interesting, compelling unit that you root for.


Some trailers:



Anatomy of a Fall - age restricted here, click to watch on youtube.

 

[Acker79]

Theater Camp
A mockumentary following the fortunes of a down on-its-luck summer camp for theatre nerds. I was looking forward to this, the trailer gave it a musical theatre version of drop dead gorgeous vibe, so as a fan of both it seemed right up my street. But for some reason, it didn't really click for me overall. The audience at my screening laughed more than me, so it might just be a me thing. I did have an occasional chuckle, but I can't now remember any of the lines that tickled me. I thought it built to a strong finish, probably enough to move it into 'fine' territory for me. But as I say, it seemed like the rest of the audience got more out of it than I did.


More trailers!

 

[The Clamp]

The Pope’s Exorcist.

Not really my usual fare. I find the telling of hokum as fact all rather tiresome but I was interested because Father Amorth led an admirable life. From dogged resistance fighter in WW2 to his later work for the church, he lived a brave and faithful life. I have long been an admirer of his.

As for the film. Well it’s standard “exorcist” bollocks. Based on Amorth’s work as an exorcist for the Vatican.

What raises this above the hundreds of similar films out there in the streaming wilderness is Russell Crowe’s performance.
Magnetic, engaging, funny, and charismatic. It saves an otherwise exploitative load of old crap.

But the film believes in itself and Crowe gives it his all. So I’m going to say overall, I enjoyed it. Certainly worth the £2 it cost to rent on Amazon.

Worth a punt.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Wanted something mindless so watched Meg 2 : The Trench.

I like Ben Wheatley's films and was interested to see if him directing one of these sorts of things would make any difference. ..

Meh


Perfectly serviceable nonsense. Forgettable.

 

[The Clamp]

Vacation Friends 2
Disney +

I mildly enjoyed the first one. Was quite amusing in parts.

This sequel, what I watched of it, is dire.

I made it through 11mins and 58 seconds of bizarre shouting, swearing, racist stereotyping, and black men’s dick jokes.

John Cena is a bafflingly shit screen presence.

The 12 minutes I saw of it were like a badly edited together string of outtakes so unfunny they didn’t even make the cut on this piece of crap.

The white female lead just screams “f*** you” a lot at foreign people.

I’m baffled by it all. Utter crap.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Went to see 'Barbie' at tea time after tapas and cocktails.

Loved the tapas and cocktails.

Liked the film.

Few thoughts:

Negatives

Really didn't need to have Will Ferrell in it
A scene near the end didn't work for me or my friend (who was also a bit tipsy). There's a great rant earlier that covered it.
I didn't know the cameo appearance people but am reliably told added nothing beyond, 'oh, it's them'

Most importantly, really needed another song and dance number.

Positives

The song and dance bits
The two leads
Some good laughs
Good sets, costumes, design etc
Shambolic
Not a super hero film
Ben Shapiro hates it

Better than I expected

Not as good as I'd hoped

 

[Weststander]

Oppenheimer - we watched this in one of the bigger Odeon theatres, it was packed due to the £3 a ticket day.

We all thought it spellbinding, Cillian Murphy’s performance was astonishing.

Go to see it before it leaves the big screen, it won’t be same no matter how good your TV!

9/10. Most definitely not a movie you tick off and have forgotten the next day.

 

[The Clamp]

Just back from The Equalizer 3.

I do like a good old fashioned action thriller. Lots of violence and stunts.

This fit the bill nicely. No real surprises but very enjoyable and didn’t go on for hours.

If you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this thing.

 

[Acker79]

A combination of a massive workload due to colleagues moving on/taking time off, and a bought of covid has led to me not getting to the cinema very much at all this month. Now things are easing off, I have had a couple of trips this week.

On Monday I went to the the Duke of York's to see Pedro Almodovar's latest 'Strange Way of Life'. I had seen a trailer and it looked interesting, but I didn't know much about it. It was presented with a recorded interview with Almodovar. The film started we meet Ethan Hawke's sheriff whose widowed sister-in-law has been murdered and then an old friend shows up, played by Pedro Pascal. About 25 minutes in the title card comes up, then some credits. Then some more, then a full list of credits and it turned out it was a 30min short film. The interview ran almost 45mins and wasn't much more interesting than a standard promo interview, but I was stuck in the middle of a crowded row and didn't want to disrupt everyone to leave early.

Wednesday I went to the secret screening at Cineworld. It turned out to be The Creator. It was only a day or two before its official release, while I would normally be disappointed, I was concerned it might have been the Great Escaper, so I think a degree of relief compensated for that. It also meant I didn't have to make plans to see The Creator later this week. It's the latest from Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla, Rogue One)

Set in a alternate future, a world where AI and robots became a massive part of life, until it dropped an nuclear bomb on LA, leading to a war between america and AI, which has taken up refuge in a sympathetic asia. An American operative who fell for a woman while under cover (who is later a victim of an unexpeted attack from the US forces) is recruited to find a new AI weapon - a child like AI with highly advanced powers who can end the war.

It does a great job of world creation, and generally good performances. I didn't realise Alison Janney was going to be in it, let alone in such a significant role. Don't know that it all comes together as a great, but it was a decent film.

 

[dannyboy]

Saw The Creator this afternoon. Visually stunning , great performances, moving. Loved it

 

[Acker79]

A Haunting in Venice
I feel like I enjoy the Branagh Poirot movies more than I should. There's nothing particularly special, new or fresh about them, but I just enjoy them. It does stick out how much Poirot has changed from the almost militant 'justice must be served' character he is in Orient Express through to how indifferent he is to some of the crims committed.

 

[dolphins]

Just back from Dumb Money. It's the (adapted) true story of the Gamestop share malarkey in the US, which pitted normal average Joe individual investors, against hedge fund companies looking to crash the value of the stock to make their money (basically I guess betting that the stock/company would fail).

For what sounds a fairly dry premise, they've made a very absorbing and entertaining film, with a decent soundtrack too! Interesting to see Seth Rogan in a straight role for a change, as well.

The Creator next for me...