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Post by mkb on Apr 24, 2024 13:53:49 GMT
I haven't posted in this thread since before Xmas. I seem to go to the cinema so often -- largely thanks to my Odeon myLimitless pass -- that I struggle to find the time to provide thoughts. This month: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire *** Disengage brain and enjoy the many nostalgic touches. Love Lies Bleeding **** Erotic lesbian thriller that I imagine will divide opinion when released here next week. My husband hated it, but I was sucked in by its spit-and-sawdust grunge and b-movie vibe. Kristen Stewart commits fully. Arthur the King *** Marky Mark does cute in a true story about a dog, told Hallmark style. Much suspension of disbelief required, but not a bad way to pass an afternoon in the cinema while waiting for an overnight flight home. Late Night with the Devil ***** Biting satire on the entertainment industry at the same time as being a darn good horror flick. Great performances and perfect editing. Loved it. Mother's Instinct **** Slow-burn drama thriller that grips throughout. The acting duel between Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain is wondrous to watch. Both great. Immaculate *** Serviceable horror that does the job in terms of cheap entertainment and scares. The First Omen *** Like the original Omen, this is more drama/thriller than horror, and is enjoyable as an origin movie for all the cross-referencing back to the former. Back to Black **** The bleating from all the Amy Winehouse fans that her dad gets off scot-free is somewhat unreal. They seem to believe that documentaries -- the greatest source of propaganda in the modern age -- are truth. Back to Black only sets out to tell a simple love story behind the celebrity, and it does so brilliantly, with incredible performances from Marisa Abela and Jack O'Connell as Amy and Blake. While Amy -- the documentary -- was interesting, Back to Black is actually entertaining, and while not taking positions on who failed in their duty of care towards Amy, this movie shows enough for the viewers to reach a conclusion. Of course, what happened in real life, who knows? Bleeding Love *** Nepotistic effort from Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara playing a father and daughter travelling across the US. I'm a sucker for a road movie, but this doesn't quite gel although it has it moments. Three stars may be a tad generous. The Taste of Things *** This, particularly the meal cooked during the opening thirty minutes, was a very tough watch for me as a vegetarian for forty years. It was pretty repulsive in places and made me feel physically sick. However, you cannot but admire what the filmaker is trying to achieve in conveying the beauty in the colours and taste of gourmet cuisine through the medium of film. It's a little paradoxical that it's post-Revolution France that provides such a setting for the decadence on show. Challengers **** Another household split with hubby hating this and me loving. It's a homo-erotic sexploitation movie with the gender switch meaning that it's a power-woman taking advantage of two men. Oh, and there are some tennis matches, set to an 80s-style electronic score and increasingly immersive camerawork. As a homosexual, I don't see the physical attraction of Zendaya Coleman, but apparently people do, so what do I know. Abigail *** This is truly terrible, but it's such a hoot, especially, if, like me, you go in having no idea what genre it is. It's a vampire movie. The script and direction is attrocious, and the set-up doesn't bear scrutiny, but go with it, and there is a lot to enjoy, not least the ballerina dancing of the amazing Alisha Weir (from Matilda and Wicked Little Letters) to Tchaikovsky while slaying her victims.
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Post by Jon on Apr 24, 2024 14:00:38 GMT
I'm not seeing Challengers until this weekend but my expectation is entertaining romp and if I get that, I'm more than happy.
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Post by mkb on Apr 26, 2024 0:07:11 GMT
Civil War **** Civil War reminded me a lot of the Jodie Comer film The End We Start From out earlier in the year, in that it deals with the human consequences of societal breakdown while happily ignoring all of the how-come? and what-about? questions of the viewer in wondering how things came to be.
Nevertheless, this is a great piece of film-making that is character-driven rather than action heavy, and presents an interesting dsytopian scenario that seems paradoxically both absurdly improbable and yet worryingly close at the same time. While director Alex Garland tries to steer away from politics, the opening monologue from the president is distinctly Trumpian, and one cannot help but view events as the fall-out from someone like him, especially if the US Supreme Court go on to decree that presidents cannot be held accountable for criminal acts and Trump has a second term.
The minutiae of encounters between characters along their journey from New York City to Washington D.C. are what make this movie. Where it goes wrong is with the presence of the 23-year-old protegé character, who for the most part behaves like an annoying ten-year-old, and who does stupid things simply to serve the narrative. Without some of that Hollywood silliness, it would have been five stars.
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Post by mkb on Apr 26, 2024 0:31:37 GMT
Monkey Man ** I am shaking my head in disbelief at all of the four star reviews Dev Patel (writer/director/star) has garnered. Once we are past some silly mythical nonsense, Monkey Man starts promisingly as a story about a boxer at rock bottom, but then quickly descends into a full-on, uber-violent, retribution flick that long since left the audience caring about the outcome. For the final 75 minutes I was uttely bored. There is no excitement since there is no jeopardy: this is one of those cartoon-like movies where the hero, no matter how many villains he's up against, will always come out of it alive, defying all logic. There is not even a pretence at hinting at realism. I was however entertained by the idea that what will show India's hardest hard-men, fully loaded with weapons, what's what, is a scrap with a troupe of transexuals in all their finery. And why not?, I say. I certainly wouldn't cross some of the drag queens I know; you'd be the loser if it got rough.
It's probably not a spoiler to mention that an amputated finger, absolutely dripping in blood, is used to operate a fingerprint device at one point. I want to know where they managed to find a reader that functions when the digit is not bone dry, because I never have.
The camera work is unsteady and jerky, and action sequences are edited so frenetically that it's frequently unclear what is happening. The only positive is some striking cinematography -- that is when the camera rests for a second -- and there are hints that Patel may have a flair for story-telling were he to be given an interesting one to tell.
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Post by jek on Apr 27, 2024 14:11:17 GMT
I hadn't heard of the Italian movie There's Still Tomorrow until I read an article about it on the BBC News website a couple of days ago. It's set at the end of WWII and is filmed in black and white making it look like an Italian neo-realist movie. The Guardian gave it four stars and described it as resounding sentimental, which is about right. The reason for the BBC article was that more people went to see it in Italy than saw Barbie there. We could only find it on at our local Vue where we hadn't been for many years, but it was well worth seeking out. Some of the domestic violence sequences are very cleverly filmed. The lead actress, Paola Cortellesi, is also the director and the film is a real triumph for her. Three of us went (making the total audience six) and none of us saw the ending coming. Highly recommended.
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Post by showgirl on Apr 27, 2024 14:28:28 GMT
Curzon was doing free members' previews of There's Still Tomorrow (& with coffee & cake included, which they don't always offer), but I'd already seen the trailer a couple of times & thought the film looked too cliched & melodramatic for me; also, I do not like black-&-white films, which to me seems like affectationa as well as making them even more depressing. I'm sure however that there are artistic reasons above my head. So I'm glad you found it worthwhile, jek, but it's still not for me. Curzon have offered a run of dire (imo) previews lately: before this it was for Kidnapped (another Italian melodrama), but this weekend it's even worse with Love Lies Bleeding. How anyone could sit through the trailer and not be utterly repulsed I don't know, but it takes all sorts.
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Post by showgirl on Apr 27, 2024 14:33:53 GMT
What I did see most recently with Curzon was Challengers, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped but not bad enough for me to leave before the end, despite the fact that it was unnecessarily long. It seemed such an odd hotchpoth, with a former teen star now apparently trying to do something more adult; thumping disco music which seemed ill-matched to the material and plot, and a vast amount of tedious dwelling on the 2 male leads dripping with sweat as they played endless tennis matches - and yes, I do know that it's ostensibly a film about tennis. Of course knowing that the director was Luca Guadagnino should have alerted me, but only a item on Radio 4's Front Row the same day made more sense of it for me; however, I still can't envisage the audience to which this is designed to appeal.
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Post by danb on Apr 27, 2024 15:51:17 GMT
It just looks really soapy and Top Gun ‘sweaty-men-esque’, only with geeky looking skinny boys instead of buff navy guys. Hard pass from me.
I have, today, watched the last hour of Avengers:Endgame for the eight hundredth time, a perfectly passable Kutcher/Wetherspoon rom com on Netflix (turns out I’d seen it) and am mid way through the post John Hurt hour of ‘Alien’.
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Post by Jon on Apr 27, 2024 23:29:32 GMT
I liked Challengers, it's a relationship drama with tennis, it's very homoerotic which I was not expecting.
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Post by amyja89 on May 2, 2024 21:06:25 GMT
The Fall Guy - **
I’m not sure why I’ve had such a viscerally negative reaction to this? I simply didn’t respond to any of it. My new prime example of a movie must have been fun to make but borderline awful to watch. Hannah Waddingham’s wig truly hateful, and Emily Blunt doing something I can't quite put my finger on to be one of the most annoying characters on screen at any given moment. And I usually love her comedically!
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Post by solotheatregoer on May 2, 2024 21:47:28 GMT
The Fall Guy - ** I’m not sure why I’ve had such a viscerally negative reaction to this? I simply didn’t respond to any of it. My new prime example of a movie must have been fun to make but borderline awful to watch. Hannah Waddingham’s wig truly hateful, and Emily Blunt doing something I can't quite put my finger on to be one of the most annoying characters on screen at any given moment. And I usually love her comedically! Just got back from this. I knew going into it that it's not my typical go-to film. It's fine if you have a couple of hours to pass and don't really want to invest too much effort and just pass the time. Aaron Taylor Johnson is among my favourite actors but I really wish he would stay away from these 'cheap' action films (Bullet Train was awful in my opinion). He's so much better than this. Same for Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling. I've experienced way too much cheap comedy / action in the last few weeks with Love's Labour's Lost and now this. I need gritty drama with suspense and meaning. Or maybe I just need to lighten up a little :-)
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Post by showgirl on May 3, 2024 3:06:05 GMT
I was planning to see The Fall Guy when I could get to a Curzon as then it would be "free" with my membership, but am hesitating now in view of the above;surely though it cannot be worse/more disappointing than the hotch-potch which was Challengers? Mind you, you'd have to have seen both to advise and that itself may be unlikely.
What I did see yesterday and really enjoyed, despite realising that although "based on a true story", it had been absolutely milked for jeopardy, pathos, sentiment etc was Ordinary Angels. For nearly 2 hours on a grey day I was swept away & Hilary Swank, whom I hadn't seen in anything for years, was fantastic. Only £5, too, as my local Light cinema does a Thursday daytime deal for seniors & anyway, Curzon & PH weren't showing this.
Also hoping to catch Blackbird, Blackbird, Blueberry, but that is going to mean a trip to London or another large town & my hope of including Sometimes I Think About Dying is already dwindling as it's fast vanishing from cinemas.
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Post by solotheatregoer on May 3, 2024 7:02:03 GMT
I was planning to see The Fall Guy when I could get to a Curzon as then it would be "free" with my membership, but am hesitating now in view of the above;surely though it cannot be worse/more disappointing than the hotch-potch which was Challengers? Mind you, you'd have to have seen both to advise and that itself may be unlikely. What I did see yesterday and really enjoyed, despite realising that although "based on a true story", it had been absolutely milked for jeopardy, pathos, sentiment etc was Ordinary Angels. For nearly 2 hours on a grey day I was swept away & Hilary Swank, whom I hadn't seen in anything for years, was fantastic. Only £5, too, as my local Light cinema does a Thursday daytime deal for seniors & anyway, Curzon & PH weren't showing this. Also hoping to catch Blackbird, Blackbird, Blueberry, but that is going to mean a trip to London or another large town & my hope of including Sometimes I Think About Dying is already dwindling as it's fast vanishing from cinemas. I saw both and Fall Guy is the better option. Challengers was a complete mess.
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Post by amyja89 on May 3, 2024 7:50:05 GMT
I’ve seen both. Really liked Challengers, really didn’t like The Fall Guy, but a comparison between the two is almost impossible! Can understand the Challengers dislike, it’s the definition of a marmite movie. The vibes just really worked for me.
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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on May 3, 2024 10:54:02 GMT
I adored Challengers, just thought it was totally gonzo filmmaking full of energy and risk-taking - Luca Guadagnino just throws everything at it which obviously won't work for some people but I left the cinema completely giddy. What a score, such sizzling-hot chemistry between the cast, and a really juicy script that provides plenty of interesting relationship dynamics and themes to chew on but doesn't take itself too seriously and is ultimately just a really good time. My favourite new release of the year so far.
I have very little interest in The Fall Guy (considering its pretty positive reception I might watch it eventually, though I doubt I'll bother while it's in cinemas) but I'm excited for Love Lies Bleeding and hoping to catch that and There's Still Tomorrow this Bank Holiday weekend.
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Post by jek on May 3, 2024 17:41:17 GMT
I have just seen and loved That They May Face The Rising Sun, based on the novel by John McGahern. Being second generation Irish with many family members who left Ireland to work at the Fords car factory (an experience that one of the film's characters has had) I was predisposed to like it. But, even if you don't have that connection, it is very beautiful and profound. This was the first time I have ever been to the Garden Cinema, just near Holborn station. It really is a gem and there is a real personal touch - a member of staff came in before the film started and made an announcement about phones, toilets and other useful things. And it was only £5 for a weekday matinee ticket. If you don't know it then it is worth having a look at their website. www.thegardencinema.co.uk/
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Post by Marwood on May 5, 2024 16:49:56 GMT
Staying in Dublin from last Thursday, going back tomorrow and wanting something other to do on a Saturday afternoon that didn’t involve a bar, I finally did the ‘May the 4th Be With You’ thing yesterday and went to see Star Wars Episode 1 yesterday at the Savoy on O’Connell Street. I’ve seen it a few times before and don’t understand some of the hatred that’s been poured towards it and George Lucas, it’s by no means great and a lot of it is clunky, in particular Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd but it has some good moments and doesn’t drag. My main gripe was an old bastard sitting in the row behind me that spent about 90 minutes of its running time arsing about with plastic packets and what sounded like a zip: a few loads ffs from me had no effect, hope he detested every second he was in the, the fucjer.
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Post by jek on May 6, 2024 17:42:46 GMT
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is a really nice film made by the performance of the central actress. She positively glows. I had no idea that the Georgian alphabet looked like it does - the shop signs etc. are fascinating.
Saw it at the Barbican - and it's nice that even on a Bank Holiday Monday the bargain Monday £6 ticket charge still holds.
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Post by mkb on May 7, 2024 15:07:23 GMT
I.S.S. **** I had an inkling this was going to be a so-bad-it's-good movie so chanced a screening. Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, it's flawed and has clearly been back to the editing room a few times, but what remains is a tight and tense chamber piece. If you're after action, this is not the film for you, but it's a solid and engrossing drama, and the character dialogue between the Americans and Russians in their frought space station environment rarely strays from realism. The acting is uniformly good, and Ariana DeBose is always worth a watch. There's Still Tomorrow (C'è Ancora Domani) **** This black-and white movie from director Paola Cortellesi, which she also co-wrote and and stars in, is so lovingly crafted and such an homage to post-war Italian cinema in style, that it's difficult to believe it's a contemporary piece of film-making. One's interest in the put-upon and domestically abused Delia never wavers, and her journey destination is delightfully unexpected and uplifting. The stylisation of the regular spousal beatings as a dance rather than actual violence is particularly effective, conveying as it does the casualness and normality of life for the mother. Unfortunately, a couple of incongruous and unnecessary urban music choices twice kill the cinematic vibe, jarring with everything else in the score. The American Society of Magical Negroes **** My second divergence of last week with the wisdom-of-crowds that is the imdb.com rating system. This film was carrying a hard-to-achieve low of 2.7 -- but has climbed to 3.0 since -- yet one-in-twenty were rating this at 10.0. How could this be? I was intrigued. After sitting through what is actually a rather well-made rom-com, with compelling performances and chemistry between leads Justice Smith and Mia Ford, I am throughly mystified. I can only assume the scoring comes from Americans who don't get satire and who take things far too literally. While this film is not as good as American Fiction, which similarly played with audience preconceptions to make valid points about being black in a white-dominated society, the device used here by writer/director Kobi Libii is to show an alternative world where black people assume responsibility for stopping white people from unleashing any latent racist anger. It's an outrageous and subversive notion, but the narrative and resolution are supremely effective in challenging and puncturing well-meaning liberal complacency. I enjoyed this a lot. Ordinary Angels **** I could have done without the omnipresence of God in the dialogue, but director Joe Gunn seems to have form for making Christian movies and we're set in the US bible belt, so I guess it's to be expected. Notwithstanding that qualm, Ordinary Angels retells a true-ish story of a middle-aged woman energised to help a family suffering from recent bereavement and dealing with a sick child. She does this as a catharsis for her own problems. This story could be so saccharine as to require sick bags, but in fact Hilary Swank as the lead is believable and real in a grippingly powerful performance. It's a shame the writers needlessly diverged from reality in the dénouement for dramatic effect, as their choices require too much suspension of disbelief in a tale that, till that point, has been well grounded and tightly directed. What elevates the piece overall is that, religion aside, one cannot deny its power to move and uplift the viewer. I got through quite a few tissues watching this. Boy Kills World * Insufferably boring. Characters are thrust upon us with no time to know who they and why we should care what happens to them, before launching into two hours of relentless, mind-numbingly dull, graphic violence. I couldn't wait for this to end. How on earth did it get greenlit? Tarot *** This seems to be a horror b-movie aimed at the teenage audience, since all the graphic deaths that would trigger an age-restricted censor's certificate are left mainly to the imagination. There are a few effective jump scares, the tension builds nicely, and the actors do their best in looking surprised as they meet gruesome (and comical) ends one by one. I couldn't quite bring myself to give this the two stars it probably deserves, as the film doesn't take itself too seriously, it whips along without ennui setting in, and there are some gorgeously shot images that reminded me of the lighting and set design used in Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man.
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Post by mkb on May 8, 2024 12:09:42 GMT
The Fall Guy ** How is it possible to have both Emily Blunt and Hannah Waddingham in a film and make them both look -- incredibly -- like they can't act?
This film thinks it's meta and clever and funny, but the truth is it's not remotely any of those things; it's just one long succession of stunts that fail to thrill because you can see all the CGI joins. The stunts that are actually real -- some are shown over the end-credits, the most interesting part of the 126 minutes -- are lost amongst the digitally created mess. The camera positioning and editing are dire; most of the time you don't have any spacial awareness of where characters are in relation to one another or where they're going. The speed of the edits is misjudged spectacularly.
The plot is flimsy and ridiculous and predictable, and there's no chemistry between the lead players. In fact, they're not particularly likeable, which is saying something for Ryan Gosling's supposed homage to all stuntmen, Colt Seavers, whose physical attraction ought to at least start you warming towards him. But no, he left me stone cold, and I'm a Gosling fan. Dialogue between Gosling and Blunt is delivered in such a laid-back style that it sounds like each actor had forgotten to actually, you know, act.
I didn't manage to see this in a Dolby Atmos auditorium, but the more limited 7.1 sound mix I heard was quite narrow, almost monophonic at times, with effects and surrounds prepared with little care, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the cinema at fault. If you really want to see this, I would wait till it's on free-to-air tv; the experience might be better as we typically have lower standards and notice less the flaws on the little screen.
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Post by kathryn on May 10, 2024 22:39:01 GMT
I completely loved The Fall Guy!! I am seriously wondering whether other people saw the same film as me?
It’s a love-letter to old-fashioned action movies, playing with a lot of action movie tropes; a movie about the movies. It’s freaking hilarious and the leads have great chemistry and are giving pitch-perfect performances.
Yes, they are *meant* to be laid-back. They’re pretending they are not as into each other as they really are.
Maybe you need to be a bit of a film geek to get all the jokes??
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Post by mkb on May 10, 2024 22:57:50 GMT
Maybe you need to be a bit of a film geek to get all the jokes?? Oh I get the references, but it's all done so badly and minus any actual humour.
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Post by amyja89 on May 10, 2024 23:26:30 GMT
Same here. You can get the jokes and still think they're not funny. It just wasn't for me.
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Post by kathryn on May 11, 2024 7:53:35 GMT
Well they made me laugh. YMMV, folks.
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Post by mkb on May 11, 2024 9:16:28 GMT
Well they made me laugh. YMMV, folks. Judging by imdb, yours is the predominant view. I was surprised by how much I disliked The Fall Guy after 2022's Bullet Train from the same director which I quite enjoyed.
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Post by danb on May 11, 2024 15:33:21 GMT
It thought that it was an awful lot cleverer than it actually was. I enjoyed Gosling, Blunt & Wadders performances but it didn’t really add up to the sum of its parts. Diverting enough but no classic.
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Post by Marwood on May 11, 2024 17:17:53 GMT
Saw Challengers this afternoon: I liked it rather than loved it, and liked the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross a lot (although it seemed there wasn’t much material that was stretched out over the running time), I also thought it was too long (the end of that challengers match was dragged out for a ridiculously long time), and not sure if it was necessary to have so many shots with the camera attached to tennis ballls and racquets and while I think I got where that final shot was coming from and it’s intentions, I don’t think anyone that had paid to watch that match would be whooping and hollering. 7 out of 10 from me.
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