Return of the RECENT VIEWING

[Snarfyguy]

^^^ I guess that's why I had the word "score" in quotes - because it's not my characterization, but I don't know what else to call it. "Rating?" In any case, you get the idea, that's it's received a lot of positive reviews.

I liked The Book of Life quite a bit as far as these things go, and the new one stands up to it well, although it doesn't quite bring the laughs so much.

[PresMuffley]

I tried watching Get Out & the Trainspotting sequel. Get Out started ok, seemed like something interesting might occur, but it quickly became preposterous and I stopped watching. Does it ever get around to explaining what happened to Catherine Kenner's face?

The Trainspotting sequel never grabbed me in any way and I also stopped watching it. From what I did see, I felt a proper subtitle might have been: The Time to Yell.

[Matt Wilson]

The Philadelphia Story

Practically my favorite '40s romantic comedy. Grant, Hepburn and Stewart were rarely better. The dialogue sizzles, the photography is crystal clear in Criterion's new 4k scan, and it's all thoroughly enjoyable. Did this make our recent 100 greatest films poll? It should've.

[PresMuffley]

Hal Ashby's ability to address race, class, inequality, gentrification, societal expectations, familial relations - hell, you name it - in such an honest, humorous, absurd manner is something I am very thankful for. He never attempts to wield a bludgeon over our collective, guilty leftist heads, but rather pokes & prods us along his vision of the American Dream. Together we discover just how rotten it is at its core.

This film is 47 years old and feels fresher than anything Hollywood will release in 2020. Please do watch if you get the opportunity.

[algroth]

Six year-old Clementine loved it and in truth it's pretty irresistible.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it an aggregate "score" of 96%, if that's any indication.

Score is a bit of a stretch. It' simply means 96% of critics that are on that site gave it more than 75% or 7/10. If everyone gives a film 7/10, the film gets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's why I don't particularly like Rotten Tomatoes as an aggregate score site. Metacritic has its own problems too (all 5/5s, 10/10s are 100%) but it actually gives an average score at least.

That being said I am somewhat interested in Coco. I like the whole Day of the Dead lore but I think it won't be quite as interesting as The Book of Life which was wonderful and a very high bar.

Actually the "fresh" line for RT usually is 6/10, though it also varies depending on publication and what the critic himself submits into the site (some 6/10s are fresh, whereas others may be rotten).

[Matt Wilson]

Violent Saturday

Masterful Cinemascope noir/thriller/melodrama with some of the best wide angle shots I've ever seen. Called 'the king of Southwestern noirs' not that I can think of too many other films which would fit that category. Lee Marvin adds to his arsenal of memorable villains and Ernest Borgnine is an Amish man, of all things...

[Snarfyguy]

Lambert and Stamp, 2015 or so

Catnip for Who fans, obviously and a very rewarding watch. I might have pruned 20 minutes' worth of Pete and Rog reminiscing and chucked it in with the bonus materials; the momentum sort of flags after the filmmakers have burned through their trove of archival footage (which is GREAT).

Lambert being dead, it's Chris Stamp's show and he's a pretty captivating bullshit artist/raconteur. The whole thing is so entirely improbable: the streetwise hustler pairing up with the multilingual, aristocratic gay guy; discovering the band and turning them into a world class, household name act. Inevitably the wheels come off and the survivors are left to tell the tale, which I suppose finally fulfills the pair's initial ambition, after the fact: to make a film of it all.

The scene where Pete shows the managers Glittering Girl is stunning.

Hey look, it's on YouTube



@ 0:34

[naughty boy]

Beautiful.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Hal Ashby's ability to address race, class, inequality, gentrification, societal expectations, familial relations - hell, you name it - in such an honest, humorous, absurd manner is something I am very thankful for. He never attempts to wield a bludgeon over our collective, guilty leftist heads, but rather pokes & prods us along his vision of the American Dream. Together we discover just how rotten it is at its core.

This film is 47 years old and feels fresher than anything Hollywood will release in 2020. Please do watch if you get the opportunity.

Yes!!!

Great film. Unjustly forgotten by most.

[pcqgod]

Kong Skull Island (2017)

This is some preposterous stuff that doesn't stand up to any logical scrutiny, even accepting that giant monsters exist on a magical island somewhere. But the appearances of the lead monster are great and the sequence with Kong versus US Army helicopters is ridiculously fun and I like the fact that instead of the usual brontosaurs and tyranosaurs we get giant water buffalo, daddy longlegs and walking sticks, etc.



Split (2017)

This movie features an undoubtedly commendable performance by James McAvory as a man with a couple dozen personalities, but I didn't really care for it, other than some interesting stuff on the interrelation (and conflict) between the various personas. Specifically, I didn't really care for the way it goes off into fantasy land, nor the idea that it might be setting up a sequel.

[Matt Wilson]

Jabberwocky

Yes, it's not Python; yes, it's probably minor Gilliam - yet it's still great fun and it has never looked this good on home video. It's Monty Python's and the Holy Grail's little brother. Not nearly as funny, but for a fan such as I, it's heaven sent!

[Snarfyguy]

Heist gone wrong kinda thing, mostly got pretty good reviews I understand. Pretty ridiculous in terms of plausibility, but I guess that comes with the territory. I mostly liked it pretty much; my main issue was that I couldn't really buy into the lead actor's performance. Otherwise, it's decently fun. Jennifer Jason Leigh shows up for a couple of very good scenes.

[Matt Wilson]

Bananas

Pretty good early Allen film dealing with a Castro-like nebbish, played by Woody, who becomes president of a South American country. While not prime Allen, it's still entertaining enough to own. Twilight Time has done a wonderful job issuing his films in hi def. They're all limited editions, so get 'em while you can... I've got at least a dozen.

Le Samourai
Melville's cool-as-fuck gangster film with Delon as the lone assassin gives a minimalist approach to a genre already overdone by the late '60s. I hadn't seen it in decades and Criterion's new blu is a must-own for fans of ultra stylish French flicks. Using American tropes with a Japanese vibe and reworking them for a French counter culture audience is exquisite for film buffs.

[PresMuffley]

In this decidedly half-baked comedy from Penelope Spheeris, a trio of New York punkers played by Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck & Flea, decide to roadtrip it out to L.A. in a VW Bug - 'cause, you know, they've had enough of that depressing NY grit & grime. Something like that anyway...

Along their journey they discover deadly rednecks in the desert, have all sorts of zany misadventures, meet a strong, local, tow truck-driving chick, and generally annoy us, as we impatiently await this travesty to end.

Jon Cryer is Jon Cryer. If you've seen him in anything you know what to expect: ham-handed, awkward, effete. Luckily for the audience, Flea's character has his brains blown out within the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately, that leaves us with an inept, ineffectual, flaccid Cryer & Daniel Roebuck, who is supposed to be there as our comic relief chubby man, though all you can think during his antics is: why couldn't the rednecks have popped a cap in this fucker too?

Spheeris rightly receives a lot of praise as a documentarian thanks to her 3-part series, The Decline of Western Civilization, but one can't deny that her subjects in those films often come across as caricatures who are lacking in depth. It's this surface-level perspective that she is intent on focusing on here. There is nothing remotely interesting, funny or believable about these characters or their situations, and I'm not sure there is meant to be. It feels like a cheap cash-in on '80s youth counterculture that came several years too late, and several financiers too short.

[Neige]

Six year-old Clementine loved it and in truth it's pretty irresistible.

We went to see it yesterday too... and it's pretty much perfect
The most enjoyable Pixar film since Up, IMO.

But I really hated the holiday Frozen spin-off they showed before. Cringeworthy kitsch of the worst kind.

[Darkness_Fish]

Ok, I'm not the biggest fan of superhero movies, or CGI in general, and it has to be said, it did keep my son fully entertained for the full 2 hours. And I know it's a blockbuster, which doesn't necessarily focus on narrative arc and character development. But it would be good to have some narrative, or some character. Just something to cling to, some kind of vague emotional investment, some idea that amongst the video-game set-pieces and corny one-liners, that there was actually a hint of danger, peril, love, life, humanity or just a frigging semblance of purpose. This kind of drivel makes Spiderman 2 seem like The Seventh Seal.

[pcqgod]

The Pirates (2014)

Korean-made action/fantasy flick featuring good pirates, evil pirates, mountain bandits, evil government troops, and a whale. Okay, but not terribly memorable.



Blue Ruin (2013)

Dark and very violent revenge story. Excellent.



Don't Look Now (1973)

This is the first movie I've sought out because of its placement in algroth's movie poll. I enjoyed it. Very Twilight Zone-ish.



Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

This is pure OTT heavy metal comic book fantasy with big guns, big swords, big hammers, aliens, a Hulk, Valkyries, a giant wolf, and the flame demon Surtur, plus the usual excellent cast (how does this franchise attract the classiest cast of all the Marvel Universe films?), and plenty of goofy humor. Good fun, especially if you're into the comic, but you'll stop thinking about it immediately after the credits roll.

[Matt Wilson]

Heaven & Earth
Unrelentingly grim/depressing. I didn't much like it at the time and have no reason to alter my opinion. Beautiful images of Vietnam cannot alter the hell Stone puts his heroine through during the course of the picture. Apparently, most of it is true as well, though the Tommy Lee Jones character is a compendium of various men in her life. The last and weakest of Stone's Vietnam trilogy.

The Mercenary
One of Sergio Corbucci's most popular films, this new Kino Lorbor release could really use subtitles because Franco Nero's Italian accent is so thick it almost defies interpretation (and they call him the 'gringo' throughout the picture - as if he's supposed to be American).

Purple Noon
Delon became a big European star after this picture in 1960 and it's easy to see why. He could act and he was handsome. The film was beautifully shot and was entertaining in a slightly Hitchcockian manner. The remake with Matt Damon wasn't even half as good.

[Darkness_Fish]

Interesting take on the modern-day zombie flick. It's clearly using 28 Days Later as its core, but it heads in a different direction from that Triffid-dodger. Kicking off with a bunch of children being educated in a military compound, all in wheelchairs, restrained at wrists, head and feet, and treated fairly brutally. It becomes apparent that they're treated as non-humans ('abortions' in the film's language), because they were infected with the zombie virus in the womb, and have human characteristics while still being vicious killers, but they're being kept alive to help generate a cure for the virus. Cue the zombie attack on the compound, and one of the kids (the titular girl), a teacher, a doctor, and a couple of soldiers are forced to try and survive on the outskirts of a post-apocalyptic London.

It's clearly coming from a sci-fi direction, rather than a horror direction, the performances are all excellent (what else would you expect from a small ensemble of that quality), and it does try to explore morality and humanity rather more than the average zombie flick. Some of the location scenes are clearly CGI'd though, which kind of breaks the gritty realism its going for at times. Well worth a watch though.

[driftin]

Interesting take on the modern-day zombie flick. It's clearly using 28 Days Later as its core, but it heads in a different direction from that Triffid-dodger. Kicking off with a bunch of children being educated in a military compound, all in wheelchairs, restrained at wrists, head and feet, and treated fairly brutally. It becomes apparent that they're treated as non-humans ('abortions' in the film's language), because they were infected with the zombie virus in the womb, and have human characteristics while still being vicious killers, but they're being kept alive to help generate a cure for the virus. Cue the zombie attack on the compound, and one of the kids (the titular girl), a teacher, a doctor, and a couple of soldiers are forced to try and survive on the outskirts of a post-apocalyptic London.

It's clearly coming from a sci-fi direction, rather than a horror direction, the performances are all excellent (what else would you expect from a small ensemble of that quality), and it does try to explore morality and humanity rather more than the average zombie flick. Some of the location scenes are clearly CGI'd though, which kind of breaks the gritty realism its going for at times. Well worth a watch though.

I really liked that. As you say it's approaching the subject matter in a more sci-fi way rather than horror way. Its attitude to the infection is nicely philosophical, basically treating it simply as a consequence of nature rather than something absolutely villainous.