Films you've seen at the cinema: 2020

[Orang Utan]

Saw Roma at the flicks last night and was so glad I did. Absolutely incredible film. How the fuck did they film that scene at the beach?
the most striking thing about seeing it on the big screen, however, was the sound design. You hear the dialogue all around you, as if you’re there in the middle of all the scenes. At first I thought there were some noisy Spanish people behind me!

 

[Threshers_Flail]

Has anyone seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

It's so so good, phenomenal.

 

[Orang Utan]

Has anyone seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

It's so so good, phenomenal.

On Monday, plague-willing

 

[Threshers_Flail]

On Monday, plague-willing

It's worth the risk!

 

[belboid]

Has anyone seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

It's so so good, phenomenal.

at least two of us have said so on this very thread!

You are quite right, tho

 

[redsquirrel]

Go and see it (while I try and find a copy of Water Lilies with English subs)

I quite liked Water Lilles but couldn't help feeling it was a not so good version of Fucking Amal (which is of course immense).

 

[Reno]

Has anyone seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

It's so so good, phenomenal.

I probably admired it more than outright loved it. It's literary, thoughtful and beautiful to look at but somehow it didn't emotionally engage me. I've spoken to people who felt very differently about it though, so it may just be me. I'd certainly still recommend it.

Of Sciamma's films I liked Tomboy the best. Water Lillies was a good first film, what I liked most about it was Para One's score.

 

[Reno]

Saw Roma at the flicks last night and was so glad I did. Absolutely incredible film. How the fuck did they film that scene at the beach?
the most striking thing about seeing it on the big screen, however, was the sound design. You hear the dialogue all around you, as if you’re there in the middle of all the scenes. At first I thought there were some noisy Spanish people behind me!

Would love to see this in a big cinema, I read that the sound design is amazing.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Queen and Slim - pretty cool. Themla and Louise meets Get Out vibe.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - lovely.

Invisible Man - a great psychological horror-thriller. I imagine it could be very triggering for some people who have been in abusive relationships though.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

This is a bad time for cinema but Curzon are doing a Q&A with Mark Jenkin director of the film Bait this evening.

Not quite sure what it will entail since I doubt they'll be in the same room together!

 

[A380]

Fuck all recently...

 

[DexterTCN]

Fuck all recently...

Online counts....although those will dry up soon as well because nothing's getting made.

FFS

 

[belboid]

Piano to Zanskar

A documentary about this bloke and two hippies taking... guess what? Yes! A piano to Zanskar - which is in the Himalayas thus making it the highest piano in the world apparently. The village was actually called Lingshed, but the film goes for Zanskar because (we decided) otherwise people would assume it was a place in the Lake District and be thoroughly unimpressed by a bloke driving up the M6.

The bloke is quite boring and the hippies a bit annoying but it was still a fascinating film. Not least because they had hoped to carry the piano (carefully separated into umpteen bits) up the mountain by yak. But then they actually met the yams and discovered that they weren’t far away, they were tiny. So ten blokes had to spend three days carrying this delicate instrument over a rough path in the blazing sun. Fun.

And then the bloke had to put it back together again. Will he manage it? You’ll have to watch to find out. While he’s trying, one of the hippies leads the youth in a group singing of Moving On Up, and that is just fantastic.

It was at a drive in, was meant to be on the festival circuit this year, but that obviously didn’t happen.

 

[hash tag]

Sounds like something Tony Hawks might have done

 

[Orang Utan]

Online counts....although those will dry up soon as well because nothing's getting made.

FFS

Not in this thread. Sgonna be a couple of months before cinemas reopen ‘properly’ if that

 

[T & P]

I said in another thread I’m surprised some studios haven’t decided to release some of their films directly on PPV and charge a bit more. Last week I noticed one such film.

Unfortunately it is Scoob, a feature length animation Scooby Doo film. Virgin wanted £17.99 to watch it. And it is a 48h rental as well. You don’t even get to keep it.

This week is down to £15.99. Bargain

 

[Reno]

I said in another thread I’m surprised some studios haven’t decided to release some of their films directly on PPV and charge a bit more. Last week I noticed one such film.

Unfortunately it is Scoob, a feature length animation Scooby Doo film. Virgin wanted £17.99. And for just a 48h rental as well. You don’t even get to keep it.

This week is down to £15.99. Bargain

Been watching a few films recently which were scheduled to get a theatrical release and which instead went to streaming (not going to pay £16 though )At a certain budget it's not worth releasing blockbuster for studios. They are better off waiting for theatres to reopen for those. When the cinemas reopen, they also will need films which draw a large audience.

 

[T & P]

Been watching a few films recently which were scheduled to get a theatrical release and which instead went to streaming (not going to pay £16 though )At a certain budget it's not worth releasing blockbuster for studios. They are better off waiting for theatres to reopen for those. When the cinemas reopen, they also will need films which draw a large audience.

Yeah, agreed. Which makes the Scoob price even more puzzling. I’d pay £17.99 for a small selection of ‘premium’ upcoming films I was really looking forward to, such as Tenet. But Scoob? I doubt it was even planned to have a theatrical release in the first place!

 

[Reno]

Yeah, agreed. Which makes the Scoob price even more puzzling. I’d pay £17.99 for a small selection of ‘premium’ upcoming films I was really looking forward to, such as Tenet. But Scoob? I doubt it was even planned to have a theatrical release in the first place!

Scoop! was supposed to get a theatrical release but its one of those films where it was clear that this was never going to be a huge hit, so they released it to streaming where it probably did as well as it would have in theatres. The biggest budgeted film to go to PPV so far was Disney's Artemis Fowl. It was supposed to be a mid-range blockbuster but they realised that they had a piece of crap on their hands so they cut their losses and online it went.

 

[Maltin]

I said in another thread I’m surprised some studios haven’t decided to release some of their films directly on PPV and charge a bit more. Last week I noticed one such film.

Unfortunately it is Scoob, a feature length animation Scooby Doo film. Virgin wanted £17.99 to watch it. And it is a 48h rental as well. You don’t even get to keep it.

This week is down to £15.99. Bargain

Some films have been released direct to VOD but when you’ve invested $300 million on a film and the performance at the cinema impacts other revenue streams, it’s understandable that studios will delay the release. I imagine that the main cost of delaying for the studio is the interest on the financing of the movie which, given interest rates, is not prohibitive but will add over time. I expect them to start releasing their cheaper product soon but given many seem to be reliant on higher budgeted movies, maybe the studios have less films in this category. I expect one “benefit” of the current situation is that the studios might have to rethink their recent strategies and go back to films that play in theaters for longer rather than focusing on opening weekends; avoid repetitive content and expensive franchises and focus on lower budgeted films with good stories. It probably won’t happen but I live in hope to see a change to the model they have been reliant on for the last 15 years.

 

[cybershot]

Erm. Aliens.

Yes. I know. It was released in 1986. But still. It was a trip to the cinema.

 

[belboid]

So the group that put on the last drive in are doing another. This time it’s The Runaways. That fine, feisty, female punk group put together by a paed... uhh, svengali.

or so we thought when getting tickets. It’s actually about donkeys.

 

[Orang Utan]

Tenet: A four pack of Tennent's Super a better alternative tbh. You'll end up just as bleary and confused but at least you'll have enjoyed it. 1 eh?s out of 5 what?'s


(the cinema experience was fine - not much different than from pre-lockdown - I went to a Vue and there were about a dozen customers at the screening, all on those new reclining seats which give you loads of space anyway, but this wasn't an issue as there were just a few of us in a 200+ seat cinema. The staff wear face shields and scan your phone for the ticket but that was the only difference I noticed. Avoided the lav though and didn't drink or eat anything)

 

[Sue]

Les Miserables (this week's Mubi Go film). Cop starts a new job in the Parisian banlieue and discovers he's not in Kansas anymore. First feature from Ladj Ly who doesn't pull any punches in terms of who's in charge/wants to be in charge -- the police, the dodgy local politicians, religious groups, dealers -- and the consequences for the youngsters living there. Ultimately, the story arc was a little bit too tidy for my tastes but thought this was pretty good. Next week's Mubi Go film is La Haine (which I haven't seen since it came out 25 years ago ) so be interesting to see how that holds up, both on its own and as a companion piece to this.

First time I've been to the cinema since March. Afternoon showing in a very quiet cinema. Felt okayish but not sure I'd go to a busy evening showing.

 

[Jay Park]

As my Korean friend told me South Korea , under military dictatorship, modernised so fast that traditional views of hierarchy, deference and social norms collide with turbo capiitalist development.

you mean like how most people there will only be friends with folks from the same school year and to a lesser extent those whom they might work with etc. And why they are so whimsical about dropping the previous fad for the newest one. Taiwanese cakes, claw machine thingies for prizes and hey ho, tattoos now.

 

[Sue]

La Haine. Holds up very well I thought, you could easily mistake it for a contemporary film (well apart from Vincent Cassel looking so young).

About five years after this came out, I lived in Paris for a few years -- not in the banlieue but in an area with a large N African origin population. The police, especially the CRS (the riot police), really were absolute bastards -- constantly, aggressively hassling young guys on the street. Those bits of the film I thought were exaggerated really weren't (and I obviously didn't see/experience the half of it). Sadly, suspect the film is as relevant today as it was 25 years ago.

 

[Sue]

Rocks. Follows a teenage girl who's left to look after her younger brother when their mother leaves. Absolutely excellent performances from the teenage cast. Filmed in my local area too so fun trying to spot the locations. Highly recommended

 

[blossie33]

I went to see Memories of Murder last week, an earlier film from the Korean director who made Parasite - thought it was very good. Apparently the story was based on an actual series of murders back in the 80's.

Was nice to be back in a cinema and watching a film on the big screen after so many months

 

[Sue]

blossie33, you might enjoy Rocks. It's on at the Rio and was filmed in Hackney -- bits in Ridley Rd, Dalston Lane, Kingsland Rd, Old St (still trying to work out where the flats are though.)

 

[belboid]

The Trial of the Chicago Seven

God, Sorkin is annoying. How could anyone screw up such a sensational and clearly contemporary movie about the trial of the century (part 272). Okay, he doesn't entirely screw it up, it has all the Sorkin trademarks of rapid fire dialogue, everyone (well, every white one) spitting out brilliantly phrased political nuggets and people having to grow extra arms in order to fit the necessary amount of liberalism on their sleeves. Being a courtroom drama means they can't do the walk and talk thing half as much as he'd like, but he still manages some fast cutting and some neat lil shots.

Where it fails is in giving us a decent view of the utter chaos and madness that was not just the trial, but all the events around the democratic convention and the whole damned counterculture. It is all far far too polite. The Richard Schultz character is a completely fictionalised account of a man described (by his friends) as an attack dog, he wasn't the nice guy with obvious doubts he is shown as (and lets not even mention his absurd final moment on screen). Bobby Seale is woefully underwritten, and the Panthers are the only ones whose case we don't really get to hear. What happens to him (and Fred Hampton) are shown and are shocking, but not half as shocking as they should have been, the full depth of vileness with which they were treated was barely scratched. Abbie Hoffman is made into a wet liberal joker, a mere prankster.

"I think the institutions of our democracy are wonderful things that right now are populated by some terrible people" is, supposedly, a line from Hoffman at the culmination of the trial, and Sorkin must be glad he's dead because otherwise he'd probably be suing for defamation of character. It's not as if he didn't have a transcript to work from! Of course, it isn't really Hoffman speaking at the end, its Sorkin, as it always bloody well is.

I'm off to watch Medium Cool to make up for it.