Films you've seen at the cinema: 2020

[Part 2]

The Painted Bird. A boy searches for his parents in the second world war somewhere in Eastern Europe, stumbling across the worst people and situations imagineable. It looks very nice despite being thoroughly depressing. Based on a book and I suspect it follows the chapters as we see names appear on screen and they're the next shitty person he meets. I don't think I'll bother reading it. It was alright but just not as good as I'd hoped.

A lot of comparisons with Come and See which I might have to rewatch because I wasn't paying attention when I saw it.

 

[Fez909]

On The Rocks

It's a Lost in Translation remake, but not nearly as good. And I'm aware that 50% of people thought LiT was shite anyway. Luckily we were 2 of the 5 people who had booked tickets, so the 'rona risk was hopefully low, as I would hate to die due to this nothingness

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Went to see Saint Maud last night - cracker of a film IMO. It's being sold as horror but it's not really. The trailers appear to be selling an entirely different film to the one that actually exists.

Go while you still can!!

 

[Sue]

Went to see Saint Maud last night - cracker of a film IMO. It's being sold as horror but it's not really. The trailers appear to be selling an entirely different film to the one that actually exists.

Go while you still can!!

Saw this randomly at the LFF* last year -- thought it was excellent. I was a bit surprised to see it was being advertised as a horror too -- more a psychological drama imo.

*it was in the main competition which is unusual for a first feature.

 

[belboid]

Saint Maud

Fucking marvellous. Completely unpredictable, almost completely mystifying. Took about twenty minutes until I realised it wasn't set in the seventies, but that's Scarborough for you. Brilliant score that really helps ratchet up the tension. Quite brilliant.

And it is really, really, obviously a horror movie. When your testes start retracting into your body in a cinema, you are watching a horror movie. I appreciate this test may not be wholly appropriate for all viewers.

 

[A380]

Went to see Tenet on Wednesday as I suspect our Ciniworld will never reopen and wanted to go one last time on my unlimited card. Which they haven’t charged us for. In honour I even brought stuff from the concession stand rather than smuggling in my own. Five people in total in the audience.

It’s either an ok film or a great one. I gave up trying to track the different time streams at the start of the final set piece. I suspect all the bits line up and with an internet browse and a bit of paper to draw the story line on it could be a great very intelligent film.

If it’s not, it’s still a good eye candy action film. You could just ignore the plot and watch it like a Fast and Furious style actioner.

 

[Part 2]

Saint Maud. Wow!

Just brilliant. Best horror I've seen for some time.

I want to go to Scarborough to see if it really is worse than my childhood holidays.

 

[Orang Utan]

Will soon be loads as I've just bought a fuckton of Leeds Film Festival 2020 which starts next month. Loads of it online but loads will be shown in actual venues, albeit socially distanced - it's been quite difficult buying single tickets in the places I prefer to sit - they're reserved for bubbles of two and three. Discrimination!

 

[Orang Utan]

Saint Maud. Wow!

Just brilliant. Best horror I've seen for some time.

I want to go to Scarborough to see if it really is worse than my childhood holidays.

Shit, another unused free Mubigo ticket that I've probably missed again

 

[Mation]

Was wondering how come there are so many posts on this thread, but then spotted that it's still March on page 6.

Don't think I could face a cinema this year.

 

[bharatsharma]

I m a Halloween fan, i saw Hubie Halloween

 

[spanglechick]

Pleased to find Saint Maud was still on at our local Everyman.
I note the genre debate above, and see both sides. It’s not horror in the traditional sense, but there are many viscerally horrific moments (including some of the best filmic representation of what it’s like to be miserably, unpleasantly drunk I think I’ve ever seen).

I thought the final moment somewhat silly - not that the shot was included at all, just that the split-second edit seemed to belong to a lesser film.

 

[purves grundy]

I want to go to Scarborough to see if it really is worse than my childhood holidays.

What you on about Part 2 , Scarbs is glorious!

 

[Part 2]

What you on about Part 2 , Scarbs is glorious!

I'm sure it is actually. I found a picture of me on the beach in 1995, probably the last time I was there...looks grim in Saint Maud though.

 

[T & P]

Not worth starting a thread on this, but unless it’s just us, our Virgin Media menu home page for the On Demand movies appears to be showing the brand new and super-premium rental (£15.99 for 48 hours) The Witches on the preview screen they usually show film trailers on as you browse the on demand films available.

 

[Sue]

Knight Without Armour, part of the BFI's (short) Dietrich season. Set just before/during the Russian Revolution, Dietrich plays an aristo who's helped to escape by Robert Donat (a British spy pretending to be a Red then a White, then neither). A rollicking adventure all round. (Reds! Whites! Siberia! Firing squads!) It was made in 1937 and Dietrich apparently gave her salary to Jewish refugees. Definitely worth catching if you get the chance.

 

[Sue]

Mank. How Herman Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay of Citizen Kane. (Still disputed as that is.) So I really wanted to like this but it just didn't quite do it for me. Too itty bitty and flashbacky and no real cohesive narrative. Felt like there was a much, much better film in there trying to get out as it's an interesting story about an interesting man.

I also suspect that if you aren't reasonably familiar with 1930s/early 40s Hollywood and American politics, you'd be pretty lost. And if you haven't seen Citizen Kane... . The performances are good and it looks great it's just...the rest of it that really should be better.

 

[Reno]

Mank. How Herman Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay of Citizen Kane. (Still disputed as that is.) So I really wanted to like this but it just didn't quite do it for me. Too itty bitty and flashbacky and no real cohesive narrative. Felt like there was a much, much better film in there trying to get out as it's an interesting story about an interesting man.

I also suspect that if you aren't reasonably familiar with 1930s/early 40s Hollywood and American politics, you'd be pretty lost. And if you haven't seen Citizen Kane... . The performances are good and it looks great it's just...the rest of it that really should be better.

That's just how I felt. This should have been up my street but apart from looking gorgeous, it was disappointing. Herman Mankiewicz doesn't emerge as fascinating enough character to follow for over 2 hours and the episodic flashback structure, which works so well in Citizen Kane, was a drag. The only times this perked up was whenever Amanda Seyfried's Marion Davis was on screen, I ended up wishing the film was about her.

 

[Sue]

That's just how I felt. This should have been up my street but apart from looking gorgeous, it was disappointing. Herman Mankiewicz doesn't emerge as fascinating enough character to follow for over 2 hours and the episodic flashback structure, which works so well in Citizen Kane, was a drag. The only times this perked up was whenever Amanda Seyfried's Marion Davis was on screen, I ended up wishing the film was about her.

I read some reviews afterwards (I don't tend to before) and the ones I've seen are all excellent. Maybe down to that critics loving films about film making thing...

And yes, agreed about Marion Davis. That was interesting.

 

[Reno]

I read some reviews afterwards (I don't tend to before) and the ones I've seen are all excellent. Maybe down to that critics loving films about film making thing...

And yes, agreed about Marion Davis. That was interesting.

I read reviews by critics I follow (Stephanie Zacharek, Glenn Kenny, The AV Club) which were positive, but not enthusiastic which is about right. Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian adores it, which often is a bad sign in my book.

In Citizen Kane-lore Marion Davies has long been considered the character betrayed by the film, as her fictionalised version is the talentless singer Susan Alexander Kane, while Davies was a talented and popular actress. So Mank restores her reputation and I'd be surprised if Amanda Seyfried doesn't get nominated for every supporting actress award going.

 

[Kaka Tim]

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.

TBH - i though it was really powerful. I didn't know loads about the story - so im only going on what was on screen - but the trial as an outrageous act of political revenge by a corrupt and vicious government came across very strongly - as did the shockingly racist treatment of bobby seale. Agree it should have shown more the actual events of the DNC itself. Im not sure it was putting a overwhelmingly wet liberal line - was kind of left unresolved - and that a violent response to state violence was at the very least understandable, probably unavoidable and - in the case of the panthers - arguably a political necessity. Agree that the state prosecutor as "decent man" really jarred.
Baron Cohen was fantastic as Abie Hoffman.