Movie What's the last movie you saw? (7)

[JackOutback]

Wicked Little Letters... based on the true story of a small English town post WWI that is scandalised when a series of obscene letters start being received by residents. Suspicion falls on the brash Irish immigrant single mother. It has all the elements of a quirky English comedy film, Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley are good in the lead roles, but it never quite lives up to the wacky premise. It's never quite as funny as it wants to be, never quite as intriguing as a 'cosy crime' mystery. It has a charm but probably would have been better served as a BBC Sunday night drama. 6/10

Canary Black... followed that with a complete gear change. Kate Beckinsale, looking less and less like Kate Beckinsale each year, plays a super spy (you know, cause she wears punk wigs and quips while she kills) in this decidedly b-grade thriller. When her husband is kidnapped, she has to retrieve a file that is not all it seems. Despite objectively making traitorous decisions on the basis of 'trust me, I'll fix it somehow', we are meant to cheer for her and she beats up foreign baddies in order to discover the twist I guessed 10 minutes into the movie. It's entertaining in the way 80s Michael Dudikoff movies were entertaining. 4/10

 

[dumb]

Requiem for a Dream. I asked a friend for a recommendation that would be bleak enough to suck all the joy outta my soul, and this nailed it. Ellen Burstyn was incredible.

'funny games' if you're looking to remove more joy from your life down the track. there's two versions, an austrian version off the top of my head which is my preference, and a shot-for-shot american remake. has naomi watts.

 

[Roobs321]

yeah when I saw the first Funny Games in cinema it left my throat well parched and my neck very stiff, a harrowing ordeal that one (great film though)

 

[Roobs321]

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

'funny games' if you're looking to remove more joy from your life down the track. there's two versions, an austrian version off the top of my head which is my preference, and a shot-for-shot american remake. has naomi watts.

Thank you, I shall pop that up my sleeve for when I'm in one of my feral cat moods.

 

[dont bowl there]

Wicked

Well that was far better than I was expecting. Have always loved the stage show and when I heard they were doing a movie, I instantly thought 'they'll ruin this'. Boy was I wrong, that was absurdly good.

The other thing I thought was interesting was the first part being 2 hrs 40. Assumed this meant they'd stretched the story to it's absolute limits but again, I was absolutely wrong. At no point did it feel it was dragging unnecessarily.

Great first part and one I'm sure I'll watch countless times again.

9/10

Agree, was dreading the runtime but it flew by. Honestly one of my favourite movies from the past few years.

 

[HirdyLannister]

Do you have to watch each one to understand the next? Cos I don't think I can watch another 7 of them or whatever but it might be something that my husband and I would actually agree to go to the movies together for.

Worth watching the 7.

Cruise is GOAT of action.

 

[Forward Press]

MI2 and MI3 are somewhat average, but the non-numbered ones (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, Fallout and Dead Reckoning) are fine action movies and you don't need to have had intimate knowledge of previous movies to enjoy them fully.

Note that MI1 has little action and is more of a spy thriller but the later ones become full blown, very good to outstanding action movies featuring Tom Cruise doing outrageous stunts.

 

[magpie_marty]

Catch me if you can,
Yes it's old but always good to re-watch.

 

[spinynorman]

'funny games' if you're looking to remove more joy from your life down the track. there's two versions, an austrian version off the top of my head which is my preference, and a shot-for-shot american remake. has naomi watts.

Hell, you can lump all the Haneke films in there.

I remember Amour came out in early February 2013 here, and so it became many an unwitting couple's Valentine's Day pick, thinking they were going to see some regular romance film and instead getting one of the most harrowing films of the decade.

 

[Jarman3]

Napoleon

Didn't get around to this in the cinema, so decided to take a look on Apple TV+. Went for the director's cut (just under 3.5 hour running time). Split it over a few nights.

It was... OK. Not badly made, good performances all round I thought. But it just felt unfocused, it seemed too interested in his relationship with Josephine and not enough on his achievements as a military / political leader. The blurb on Apple TV+ describes it as being about his origins and rise to power "viewed through the prism of Napoleon's volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine". But to me it felt like it was actually the other way around, it was more like the story of a horny Frenchman who occasionally had to stop boning Josephine to go on some inconvenient military expedition which (with a slight exception for his invasion of Russia) was just kind of rushed through so he could get back home to play hide the salami again.

 

[Sketi]

The Brutalist - Saw this on Sunday and haven't stopped thinking about it since. Few films make me want to absorb every piece of commentary written or said about it (Tár probably the only other one this decade). Partly to relive the experience of watching it for the fist time, but also to find the allegories I've missed, seek out different interpretations. I'm enjoying the critiques of the film as much as the praise.

It's a film about the immigrant experience, the hope of the American Dream and the reality of what that actually means. Brady Corbet fascinates me; because on one hand he can comes across as the pretentious film snob that wants everyone to know he's created the "next great American masterpiece." It's another thing entirely to, possibly, maybe have actually succeeded?

Some mild structural thoughts about the film below. Gonna see this again, and let it stew for a while before I start writing pull quotes for a movie poster (or just give it a rating). But without a doubt, a tremendous achievement.

Even putting aside the intermission, it's so very distinctly a film of two halves. The first is a transportive affair, one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in a theatre. The second half is a brutal deconstruction of it - intentionally so. It becomes more literal, and I'm still parsing over what the epilogue is trying to say (specifically in relation to the last line and Corbet's own reading of it). Because for better or worse, this film comes at a particularly prescient moment in time.

Warsaw is a brutal boy confirmed.

Got my tix for next week, keen. Love that they decided to bring back the intermission after all the Scorsese discourse a year ago.

The people spoke and we won.