[Film] Film 2023

[dolphins]

Back from seeing The Creator. Looked great, and an absorbing film. I liked the way it gradually revealed key details, although you definitely I think needed to be there from the start unlike the pair who came in part way through! I did feel there were odd things not explained fully, and one thing that seemed a bit daft (

Spoiler

- when Drew looked into Alfie's hole (no sniggering) and worked out immediately that she was a super powerful entity - capable of becoming the most powerful weapon on the planet as her abilities to control technology will grow exponentially. All that from prodding something at the spinny wheels?

I was also surprised to see Ralph Ineson (Finchy in The Office) playing a US general!

 

[Acker79]

Back from watching Saw X. Set sometime between Saw and Saw II, John Kramer goes to Mexico for experimental treatment on his brain cancer, only to discover it was a con. He decides to teach them a lesson in his own way.

It felt like it was trying to address two of the criticisms of the sequels - 1) that the films started to be about the traps, not the story or the characters, 2) The apprentices got too far away from John's basic tenet of the games being winnable if you have the will power. There's a long opening period that is about John and his reaction to the news his cancer is terminal, and a general story that is way more sympathetic to him than the franchise deserves, bar a brief sequence of a game, there's a good 40mins before we say any game.

Not only are they less elaborate (although no less violent or gruesome), but there are lots of discussions and focus on how winnable they are with the right focus. Of course there is a 'twist', but it isn't particulary shocking if you've watched the films before and are paying attention to the clear bits of dialogue you know are going to be in those brief explanation montages they run through with the twist.

They don't do any de-aging, despite Tobin Bell and other returning actors being almost 20 years older than they were in the films that are set after this. So yu kinda have to go with them looking older than they should.

Pretty decent entry in the franchise.

 

[pasty]

Just seen The Great Escaper tonight. Absolutely superb. If you remember it from the news, this is the true story of a WWII veteran who “disappeared” from a care home to attend the 70th anniversary D Day landings event in France.

Michael Caine taking the lead and Glenda Jackson as his wife were both superb. An emotive, heartwarming and occasionally funny film. Loved it

Oh, and take a tissue.

 

[keaton]

Halfway through John Wick4

It should not really have a character in it called Nobody and keep using that name as it just reminds you could be watching a much shorter and better film

 

[herecomesaregular]

Watched "Stillwater" last night, featuring a very low key Matt Damon. Set in Marseille, including a visit to a game, so worth a watch maybe for those just been there and missing the graffiti! Based on the Amanda Knox case with much artistic license and it's more a slow family drama than any kind of thriller. However, it held my attention and worth a watch imo, particularly as I've been there in the past.

 

[Easy 10]

The Exorcist: Believer

This got an absolute MAULING from the critics (24% on RT), so I went to the flicks with pretty low expectations but was pleasantly surprised. OK it doesn't re-invent the wheel, you pretty much know what to expect. But the opening act sets it all up nicely low-key (hence quite convincingly), the girls are fine actors, and there are some, what I thought, genuinely unsettling scenes.

I think this probably fell into the inevitable trap of being directly compared with the original, which of course it can't hold a torch to. But as a stand-alone horror I've seen a lot worse. Not bad.

68%

 

[Acker79]

The cine-city fim festival has released its line up:

What's on - Cinecity

From 11th-20th November the 20th edition of CINECITY will be bringing the best in world cinema premieres and previews, live cinema and archive treasures to Brighton and East Sussex.

www.cine-city.co.uk

 

[Meade's Ball]

Had 5 films to view at the London Film Festival, each scarring me in parts with their loveless nature, but not deeply enough. They included takes on the holocaust, paedophilia, rape, murder and other jolly subjects, but each handled with a degree of care and ambition. Today, though, i sat through 3 hours and 26 minutes of Killers of the Flower Moon, and grew increasingly annoyed. It might seem ironic for my general emission of waffle when wittering here, but i am more enraged with cinema visits that last for more than 2 hours with little reason. Addiction to epicness is a sin of most great and big filmmakers that usually coincides with them ridding themselves of a cohort with an insistence on tidyness and sharpness. Today's film went on and on and on without the construction of depth that either half of the film deserved.
Overall it had a story entirely worth telling from a book of repute, but the enormity of it wasn't trimmed to strike. The US is a merciless facade and forged with murderous greed, and faith gets tampered with, or beheaded, by capitalism. Ok yes. But the obvious, riddled with seeming caricatures, and actors being porous and glibly familiar made for a stretched-hearted watch. Elements didn't seem to link and it didn't yank me into the buffoonish chaos. Dicaprio was semi-absurdly vacuous and DeNiro was paperweight macabre, but too many people throughout were bent into idiocy when a modicum of likely intelligence would have hindered the fiendish plans.

I am beginning to dislike legends.

 

[pearl]

Well .... I also watched Killers of the Flower Moon yesterday .... all 3 hours and 26 minutes.
Including the trailers etc. I sat in the DOY's for almost 4 hours, but the time never dragged.
I thought De Niro was excellent.
The film is based on real events in Osage County in the 1920s when Osage people struck oil, although the story centres around the spineless Ernest (Dicaprio).
The haunting soundtrack by the late Robbie Robertson.
There are minor parts played by Jason Isbell (Drive by Truckers) and Sturgill Simpson.
Jack White makes a short appearance at the end.
I loved it.

 

[The Clamp]

Watched "Stillwater" last night, featuring a very low key Matt Damon. Set in Marseille, including a visit to a game, so worth a watch maybe for those just been there and missing the graffiti! Based on the Amanda Knox case with much artistic license and it's more a slow family drama than any kind of thriller. However, it held my attention and worth a watch imo, particularly as I've been there in the past.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film too.
Occasionally MD does a left field film and they can be quite good. As is this one.

 

[pearl]

Had 5 films to view at the London Film Festival, each scarring me in parts with their loveless nature, but not deeply enough. They included takes on the holocaust, paedophilia, rape, murder and other jolly subjects, but each handled with a degree of care and ambition. Today, though, i sat through 3 hours and 26 minutes of Killers of the Flower Moon, and grew increasingly annoyed. It might seem ironic for my general emission of waffle when wittering here, but i am more enraged with cinema visits that last for more than 2 hours with little reason. Addiction to epicness is a sin of most great and big filmmakers that usually coincides with them ridding themselves of a cohort with an insistence on tidyness and sharpness. Today's film went on and on and on without the construction of depth that either half of the film deserved.
Overall it had a story entirely worth telling from a book of repute, but the enormity of it wasn't trimmed to strike. The US is a merciless facade and forged with murderous greed, and faith gets tampered with, or beheaded, by capitalism. Ok yes. But the obvious, riddled with seeming caricatures, and actors being porous and glibly familiar made for a stretched-hearted watch. Elements didn't seem to link and it didn't yank me into the buffoonish chaos. Dicaprio was semi-absurdly vacuous and DeNiro was paperweight macabre, but too many people throughout were bent into idiocy when a modicum of likely intelligence would have hindered the fiendish plans.

I am beginning to dislike legends.

Would you agree that by the end of Killers Dicaprio had morphed into Marlon Brando?

 

[Easy 10]

Would you agree that by the end of Killers Dicaprio had morphed into Marlon Brando?

Guardian review:

"With his furrowed brow and downturned horseshoe of a mouth, (Di Caprio) looks like a bulldog slowly grasping the fact that he’s been bilked out of a biscuit."

 

[pearl]

Guardian review:

"With his furrowed brow and downturned horseshoe of a mouth, (Di Caprio) looks like a bulldog slowly grasping the fact that he’s been bilked out of a biscuit."

 

[Acker79]

Five Nights at Freddy's
Based on the video game, a security guard has to deal with rampaging animatronics at a mostly abandoned themed pizzaria. I am not familiar with the game, only hearing about after watching the similar-themed Willy's Wonderland and The Banana Splits Movie from the last couple of years. I think the game is more about stealth and avoiding confrontation, so the film didn't have as much horror violence as I was expecting. The bulk of the film is about the guard and the young sister he is parenting (with an unnecessary side plot about their aunt wanting to take custody of the sister, possibly just for the maintenance cheques, it's unclear).

Didn't help that we had an audience that was lowkey annoying. Nothing you could really justify yelling at them for or telling the staff, but so much sweet bag ruffling, some muttering, a fair bit of sneezing (worrying with covid seemingly going around a lot at the moment), and laughing at a weird moment that wasn't really funny (then not laught at the one or two funny bits).

Not my favourite film of the year.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The Great Escaper. An acting Tour De Force from Caine and Jackson particularly from the latter who was just perfect from start to finish. Very good and moving. 87 out of 100

 

[Acker79]

I popped to the cinema for a double bill on Wednesday.

First up Bottoms. It tells the story of two unpopular high school "'ugly', untalented, lesbians" (the bottom of the social ladder, hence the title), who decide to start a fight club for girls at their school under the pretence of self defence and female unity, but in truth was their attempt to woo two popular girls. I really enjoyed it. It felt like the 90s teen comedies of my youth, but had a modern snarky attitude and a whimsy to it. The football team are not the typical alpha males, they wear their univorms and pads all day, they are quite soft (while still be the popular stars of school). The overarching threat is a rival football team coming to town, with a history of the rivals trying to murder one of the school's players (and a creating a terrorised community in the build up to the game). This results in an over the top finale that goes where you wouldn't expect it. I think I've seen it promoted as 'fight club meets american pie' (no, there's no fight club twist at the end of Bottoms). I think what helped the 90s feel was the outtakes in the end credits.


I followed this up with the preview screening of Saltburn. The trailer for this doesn't give much away (I didn't even realise Richard E Grant was in it), the trailer is very much about the vibes, as the kids may or may not say these days. Having seen it, I can see that it is difficult to go into plot without giving away some of the twist and turns it takes. Very basically, a less advantaged kid at Oxford eventually finds himself friends with the popular massively wealthy kid who invites him back to the family estate (saltburn) for the summer. It is funny, it is intense, it is sexy, it is gross, it is intriguing, and it is cold. I don't know if it all hangs together perfectly. The start felt a little slow to me, and the end felt a little rushed, a little, perhaps unnecessary. It is flawed, but I am glad I watched it.

 

[Gabbafella]

I watched Dumb Money the other night.
The first 20 minutes are hard work, very slow, not much happens and god awful autotuned pop-rap every couple of minutes, but once you get past that it becomes a very good film and quite engrossing.
It's the true story of how a failing business (GameStop) was being bled dry by wall street investors, shares were a couple of dollars, looked like going out of business, but a self taught trader on YouTube talks thousands of people into investing in an attempt to push the share price up to basically stick it to wall street.
The money involved was quite staggering and how nobody went to prison for what happened is quite astonishing (or not)
Well worth a watch.

 

[dolphins]

Yeah really enjoyed Dumb Money too!

I saw Anatomy of a Fall today. What a great, well crafted film it is... A courtroom drama trying to determine the circumstances of a fatal fall from the loft of a chalet. Acting top notch, well scripted, and paced - things gradually get revealed. Well worth checking out.

 

[Acker79]

I went to the lunchtime showing of The Marvels. I really enjoyed it, and would put it as the strongest non-spidey MCU movie since Endgame. But I have seen a few negative reviews (I've not really spent much time looking, but they seem the msot popular on letterboxd). But it's a superhero movie led by female heroes, and they always attract the mysoginist element of the comic book fan base (and of course the marvel-hating element of the DC fanbase becuase some people feel everything ha to be tribal). But there also seems to be a commonly held belief that superhero fatigue is taking hold, and people are fed up with them, so I imagine there is an element of that, too.

Of course, there's probably also an element of me being a comic book/superhero fan of even the worst movies, a fan of musicals, and the fact this one features both a visit to a planet where everyone communicates via song (don't wory, that only lasts for one song, it's not a big part of the movie), and a set piece later on is set to 'memories' from cats, so I may be the target audience for this sort of thing, overlooking flaws that others aren't, and I don't want to runaway with suggesting everyone who hates it hates women or are trying to jump on a superhero fatigue bandwagon. Yes, the villain is very thinly drawn and their plan is remeniscent of Spaceballs but I enjoyed the main trio and thought they had good chemistry, and the action was good. The mid credit scene had someone whooping and hollering. Given what has happened before with similar stories, I suspect their enthusiasm is misplaced.


This evening I went to the Cinecity film festival opening movie Poor Things at the duke of york's. I really liked it. Emma Stone was great as Bella Baxter a Frankenstein-like experiment that is developing and growing and wants to learn more about the world, leaving the house where she had previously been trapped by her 'creator' Willem Dafoe's Godwin Baxter to travel the world with Mark Ruffalo's Duncan Wedderburn. There is an art to the sets and costumes, at times seeming like you're watching a painting or some diorama, and a sense of rebelliousness to the cinematography in the sense that it doesn't do the camera angles/set ups that films 'should' do. It's odd and married with the set-like sets* adds a whimsy or fantastical feel to a story that itself is already quite fantastical. Apparently it's based on a book, but I have no familiarity with that. (*In the sense that movie sets usually try to convince you they are real places, this does not do that, like wizard of oz).

Emma Stone was very commited, Mark Ruffalo was almost farcical, and a lot of fun as an initially arrogant cad, who develops obsession and desperation, and isn't afraid to drop the c-bomb in a number of glorious ways. Really enjoyed it.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Booked in to see 'Dream Scenario' next week.

Have a rough idea what it's about and am avoiding finding out anymore until I see it.

I hope I enjoy it.