List the films you've seen at the cinema: 2012

[youngian]

I saw the IRA thriller Shadow Dancer, which got great reviews, but it felt no better than a middling TV movie to me. Mind I saw this at the Cineworld at the Trocadero with no air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year, it was so hot I could barely concentrate on the film. Fucking shit hole !

I enjoyed Shadow Dancer as it was a more plot driven espoinage thriller on the lines of Le Carre than an another generic action film. Being British it did have a TV movie feel but the lead performance were terrific and nothing was quite what it seemed.

 

[Reno]

I enjoyed Shadow Dancer as it was a more plot driven espoinage thriller on the lines of Le Carre than an another generic action film. Being British it did have a TV movie feel but the lead performance were terrific and nothing was quite what it seemed.

Honestly, the lack of air conditioning, a ceiling light that kept shining in my eyes and the film getting projected much smaller than the size of the screen made the cinema experience so unbearable, that I got distracted from the film. All I could think of was to get out of there. It got great reviews, I might give it another try when it comes out on Blu-ray.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Honestly, the lack of air conditioning, a ceiling light that kept shining in my eyes and the film getting projected much smaller than the size of the screen made the cinema experience so unbearable, that I got distracted from the film. All I could think of was to get out of there. It got great reviews, I might give it another try when it comes out on Blu-ray.

That Trocadero Cineworld does indeed suck big time. I avoid it when I can. On one occasion I was there, they left the door to the auditorium open and all thru the film you could hear the adverts blaring out from the monitors in the corridor. The one down the road in the Haymarket is fairly decent tho.

 

[Reno]

That Trocadero Cineworld does indeed suck big time. I avoid it when I can. On one occasion I was there, they left the door to the auditorium open and all thru the film you could hear the adverts blaring out from the monitors in the corridor. The one down the road in the Haymarket is fairly decent tho.

I love the Haymarket one, especially the beautiful main screen.

 

[Gramsci]

I enjoyed Shadow Dancer as it was a more plot driven espoinage thriller on the lines of Le Carre than an another generic action film. Being British it did have a TV movie feel but the lead performance were terrific and nothing was quite what it seemed.

I agree with this.

However it was not purely British film from the credits. The Irish Film Board provided some of the funding and it was filmed in Dublin. There are also several Irish actors in the film.

It had the solid acting and production values one expects from British TV drama. Would be watchable on DVD. It does have some well set up scenes. The creepy IRA "interrogation" flat and the funeral are two.

I thought it portrayed well the paranoia and suspicion that both sides of the conflict got caught up in. To think of it it could be seen in other countries. (Must tell my Argentinian friend about it). Not so much about the "Troubles" like the McQueen film about Bobby Sands. It was more about the effect of the Troubles on ordinary people. Or rather what would have been a ordinary family if it had not been for the war. As that is what her family would have been. It is not really a film asking you to take sides.The film shows how Andreas young son is becoming affected by the violence. Like she was when she was young as is shown at the beginning. The trauma is being passed down generations.

Andrea Risborough was very good.Just checked her out on IMDb and realise I have not seen most the films she has been in.

I also thought the actress who played the mother gave a haunting performance. She has been there and seen it all. Which is unrelentingly grim. You see it in her face in the film. Excellent understated performance.

The film was set at the time of the lead up to the ceasefire as negotiations were becoming public. It showed the weariness of those involved in this long conflict.

One of the more thoughtful dramas Ive seen recently.

 

[Gramsci]

I saw the IRA thriller Shadow Dancer, which got great reviews, but it felt no better than a middling TV movie to me. Mind I saw this at the Cineworld at the Trocadero with no air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year, it was so hot I could barely concentrate on the film. Fucking shit hole !

Is it as bad as Panton street Odeon? Trocodero was done up a few years back. They should have sorted out air conditioning.

I was at Ritzy that same weekend at the same problem. And I caught the early morning performance on Sunday. There idea to deal with it was putting jug or water and paper cups at front of screen. Reminds me I need to email to complain. Cinema is not cheap. I expect air conditioning to work.

 

[Gramsci]

"The Imposter"


Saw this on screen One at the Ritzy. Tried to not read to much of reviews as I didn't want to spoil the story. It is a documentary but its made more like a drama reconstruction. Its seamless. The talking heads and dramatic reconstructions go well together.

As the title says its about an Imposter. It really is a case of you could not make this up. If you did there would be so many glaring inconsistencies that no one would believe the plot.

If you think its just about the "imposter" think again. It goes into really scary territory later on.

As a documentary what does it say is the question I ask. There is a danger imo that as docs have become more fashionable recently they have moved into being more like a form of drama. Rather than interrogating the reality of the world around us. Which is the proper role for documentary film.

At some points, in watching this, I got the uncomfortable feeling I was watching a freak show. However I chatted to a US friend of mine and he said Texans are regarded as a bit mad by other people in US. I can see why. So it can be seen to be about that reality in Texas. Scary.

By the end I was not sure who I could believe. Could I believe anything they said? Did they convince themselves that what they were saying was true? It really was quite disturbing film.

 

[Reno]

I saw two more films at Frightfest: Berberian Sound Studio and Sinister.

Berberian Sound Studio was a dissappointment. I was drawn to it because it's about creating the soundtrack for an Italian horror film in the 70s, potentially an interesting premise. Toby Jones is very good in the lead, an uptight British sound technician struggling with with a Anglo-Italian culture clash, feeling isolated in Italy where they do things very differently. The film is brave in that it hardly ever leaves the sound studio and we never see anything but the title sequence of the film they are working on (The Equestrian Vortex which sounds like a take on Argento's Suspiria) , but it also takes a lot to make such a minimalist premise work and eventually it becomes clear that the film is going nowhere and very slowly so.

In the last 20 minutes the film attempts an Blow Up/The Conversation/Inland Empire style mental collapse and mesh of fiction and reality, but it never goes far enough and the film just doesn't manage to make the leap into darker Lynchian territory it tries for. Just as the film finally starts to get interesting, it suddenly stops and the credits roll. I found Peter Sticklands first film Katalin Varga overrated and was hoping I'd like this one better, but no luck. That said the sound design is brilliant and spot on, as is the film-within-the-film Goblin-style score by the band Broadcast.

Sinister got a lot right even if it falls apart in the last act. Starring Ethan Hawke, it's about a true-crime writer who moves his family into a house which was the crime scene for the gruesome murder of the family who lived there, to research the crime for his next book. In the attic of the house he discovers several reels of old Super 8 film which depict similarly horrific murders of families in other locations, often decades apart and a demonic presence lurking in the shadows of the frame.

The film has an intriguing premise and despite being a little cheesy, it is at times really quite scary. It even manages to make an 80s style horror film comic relief character work, a bumbling cop who is a fan of the writer. There are a few great twists along the way and the Super 8 footage of the killings which out hero pours over and over to solve the mystery (again shades of Blow Up and The Conversation) is genuinely disturbing, even if it doesn't show that much. Unfortunately the resolution is just too far-fetched convoluted and relies on several tired tropes of the modern haunted house film. I'm fed up with dodgy child actors playing spooky ghost kids with pasty make up. Not scary ! Still worth checking out if you are a horror fan, because until the last ten minutes, it's pretty good and a fair attempt at doing something different.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

"The Imposter"


Saw this on screen One at the Ritzy. Tried to not read to much of reviews as I didn't want to spoil the story. It is a documentary but its made more like a drama reconstruction. Its seamless. The talking heads and dramatic reconstructions go well together.

As the title says its about an Imposter. It really is a case of you could not make this up. If you did there would be so many glaring inconsistencies that no one would believe the plot.

If you think its just about the "imposter" think again. It goes into really scary territory later on.

As a documentary what does it say is the question I ask. There is a danger imo that as docs have become more fashionable recently they have moved into being more like a form of drama. Rather than interrogating the reality of the world around us. Which is the proper role for documentary film.

At some points, in watching this, I got the uncomfortable feeling I was watching a freak show. However I chatted to a US friend of mine and he said Texans are regarded as a bit mad by other people in US. I can see why. So it can be seen to be about that reality in Texas. Scary.

By the end I was not sure who I could believe. Could I believe anything they said? Did they convince themselves that what they were saying was true? It really was quite disturbing film.

I heard an interview with the director and thought it sounded really interesting - though living in Leicester I'll probably have to wait about for another couple of months until I can see this one. Your reaction to the film reminds me of my mine to the film doc 'capturing the friedmans' which left me utterly humble about the seeming intractablity of being able to accurately adjudicate between competing truth claims in so many instances. The unreliable narrator, rather than be an outrider, is probably the norm, certainly in an adversarial context.

 

[Reno]

I just saw The Queen of Versailles a documentary about David Siegel, a US time share billionaire and his family who built the biggest home in America, just as the recession lands them in deep water. Very good and like a magnified version what it happening with foreclosures in the US in the wake of the crash. The focus is really on the trophy wife, who is a woman of tacky tastes (she seems to have the same interior decorator as Saddam Hussein) with an excessive spending habit. What I liked is that though the values of these people are reprehensible and their tastes hilariously awful, the documentary makers don't throw them under the bus, which would have been the easy option. Actually the wife emerges as oddly likeable and I got the idea that she'd probably be a happier person without all that money, because its shown to be like an addiction. Nobody seems very happy in the film. This started out as a documentary about the building of that obscene house, but then the financial crash happened it turned into a darkly funny satire on the American Dream turning sour. When you can't afford the staff anymore and you have a gazillion pets just because you can, who will find the puppies before they get eaton by the pet python ?

 

[blossie33]

I went to see Samsara on Friday. I had seen Baraka, the film the same guys made in the 90's which really impressed me. Beautiful photography.

http://barakasamsara.com/

 

[Gramsci]

I saw two more films at Frightfest: Berberian Sound Studio and Sinister.

Berberian Sound Studio was a dissappointment. I was drawn to it because it's about creating the soundtrack for an Italian horror film in the 70s, potentially an interesting premise. Toby Jones is very good in the lead, an uptight British sound technician struggling with with a Anglo-Italian culture clash, feeling isolated in Italy where they do things very differently. The film is brave in that it hardly ever leaves the sound studio and we never see anything but the title sequence of the film they are working on (The Equestrian Vortex which sounds like a take on Argento's Suspiria) , but it also takes a lot to make such a minimalist premise work and eventually it becomes clear that the film is going nowhere and very slowly so.

In the last 20 minutes the film attempts an Blow Up/The Conversation/Inland Empire style mental collapse and mesh of fiction and reality, but it never goes far enough and the film just doesn't manage to make the leap into darker Lynchian territory it tries for. Just as the film finally starts to get interesting, it suddenly stops and the credits roll. I found Peter Sticklands first film Katalin Varga overrated and was hoping I'd like this one better, but no luck. That said the sound design is brilliant and spot on, as is the film-within-the-film Goblin-style score by the band Broadcast.

I liked it. I would not say its a horror film. Its surreal and weird. Its more of a nightmare. Like a dream where you try to get out of somewhere and never quite make it. Nothing actually happens to you but there is a feeling it might. And you cannot wake up.

Did have the effect of when me and my friend left the cinema that daylight and normality took a bit of adjusting to. So the film did take me into a parallel world.

The homage to Italian exploitation movies was very well done. My friend did not get all that and I think she thought that was all made up. Didn't spoil it for her.

 

[ska invita]

I saw two more films at Frightfest: Berberian Sound Studio and Sinister.

Berberian Sound Studio was a dissappointment. I was drawn to it because it's about creating the soundtrack for an Italian horror film in the 70s, potentially an interesting premise. Toby Jones is very good in the lead, an uptight British sound technician struggling with with a Anglo-Italian culture clash, feeling isolated in Italy where they do things very differently. The film is brave in that it hardly ever leaves the sound studio and we never see anything but the title sequence of the film they are working on (The Equestrian Vortex which sounds like a take on Argento's Suspiria) , but it also takes a lot to make such a minimalist premise work and eventually it becomes clear that the film is going nowhere and very slowly so.

In the last 20 minutes the film attempts an Blow Up/The Conversation/Inland Empire style mental collapse and mesh of fiction and reality, but it never goes far enough and the film just doesn't manage to make the leap into darker Lynchian territory it tries for. Just as the film finally starts to get interesting, it suddenly stops and the credits roll.

Glad to read your take on it - exactly the same as mine. Really disappointed though, and all the 5 star reviews are a reminder not to trust reviewers...a lot of emperors new clothes going on. Some interesting bits and a couple of great moments (the goblin !) but it just doesnt have any tension or darkness in it. Shorter in the middle and more at the end wouldve helped. A bit too much style over content.

I guess it was a pretty tiny budget so scores well on that front. Maybe im spoiled by the quality of Lynch movies, but if Lynch is premier league, this was division 2 (with a chance of promotion in the play off).

Also I found Toby Jones off putting - I never suspended my disbelief with him.

Some very good posters though (there are three other designs)

 

[belboid]

Another one for Berberian Sound Studio.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, instantly took me back to hapy days listening tto the BBC Sound Effects Death & Horror albums I had (which merrilly told you about the use of cabbages etc). Very funny, looked great (some of the shots of the boiling and or rotting down veggies particularly). The 'theme' of the last half hour may be a bit trite, but I liked how it was far more subtle than the obviousness of the Polanski & Lynch films it was clearly influenced by.

But its stong point was the use of sound, which was superbly done, some great little bits about the nature of translation, and even a sound version of the Lueshov Effect.

5 stars is far too generous, it cetainly isnt without flaws, but it was enjoable, intersting, and well worth 4 out of 5, imo.

 

[Reno]

The 'theme' of the last half hour may be a bit trite, but I liked how it was far more subtle than the obviousness of the Polanski & Lynch films it was clearly influenced by.

Some of us dummies prefer the obviousness of those masters of the cinema of ambiguity, at whose heels this film snaps. Peter Strickland has a long way to go till he approaches the way Polanski manages to imply things by the way he frames a shot or the command of atmosphere Lynch has over his films. I didn't think the film was especially subtle (those Italians and their passionate ways !), just half hearted.

As art house tributes to Italian horror films from the 70s go, I far preferred the Belgian Amer from a couple of years ago.

 

[belboid]

Some of us dummies....

No need to be so hard on yourself, Lynch is a genius. I just like a more varied diet. And no one should try and 'do a Lynch' - they'll fail, and it'll be shit. Fortunately I don't think BSS was doing that at all. Then again, I dont think its really a tribute to Italian horror films either. There ya go

 

[Reno]

Then again, I dont think its really a tribute to Italian horror films either. There ya go

Not everything about the film, but a large part of it is a tribute to Italian horror of the 70s, in particular to Suspiria. I don't even think that's a matter of opinion, the director would tell you so himself (he did in a Q&A, when I saw the film)

...and he same goes for Amer. It is a tribute to Italian horror films AND it is more.

 

[belboid]

There are plenty of references, and it clearly owes a debt and has an element of homage. It's just about more than that, imo.

 

[Reno]

It's just about more than that, imo.

Yes, sure. But that doesn't mean that it isn't also a homage to Italian horror films. It's fairly obvious that films can be more than one thing.

 

[belboid]

Okay, it wouldnt be the thing I'd put at the front. At least, it wasn't that that interested me about it.

 

[Reno]

Okay, it wouldnt be the thing I'd put at the front. At least, it wasn't that that interested me about it.

It was what made me go to see it.

 

[belboid]

I'm not entirely surprised you're disappinted then.

 

[Reno]

I'm not entirely surprised you're disappinted then.

It's not like I can't tell the difference between what type films Berberian Sound Studio homages and what type of film it attempts to be and manage expectations accordingly. Apart from the homage, it tries to be a type of film I rather like, there are just better examples of it. Some of them were made by Polanski and Lynch and a few more by Coppola and Antonioni.

 

[belboid]

Forty years ago.....and differently.

Hey ho, you didnt like it. Fine. Other opinions are available.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Finally saw Searching for Sugarman last night. Loved it, a truly heart warming documentary.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Berberian Sound Studio was a dissappointment. I was drawn to it because it's about creating the soundtrack for an Italian horror film in the 70s, potentially an interesting premise. Toby Jones is very good in the lead, an uptight British sound technician struggling with with a Anglo-Italian culture clash, feeling isolated in Italy where they do things very differently. The film is brave in that it hardly ever leaves the sound studio and we never see anything but the title sequence of the film they are working on (The Equestrian Vortex which sounds like a take on Argento's Suspiria) , but it also takes a lot to make such a minimalist premise work and eventually it becomes clear that the film is going nowhere and very slowly so.

5mins of this film is worth alot more than the rest of the pap out there. The going nowhere isn't a problem for me it's more reflective on the cinematic process and media. The whole atmosphere is wonderful. It doesn't know how to end but heh most films fail in this area. It's no Polanski or Lynch but it is a low budget UK film made by an inexperienced director. I think we should expect great things from Strickland in the future.

 

[marty21]

1. Moonrise Kingdom -
2. The Sweeney -

I used to go to the cinema almost weekly, so to only go to two this year is strange - must see more, must see more

 

[bi0boy]

Is Lawless any good? Might see it tomorrow.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

The Watch with has Richard Ayoade in it. It's very inane and silly and got terrible reviews everywhere, but I sort of liked it. Jonah Hills character Franklin made me laugh. But it's a bit all over the place, it's no Ghostbusters.
The Sweeny, which was alright, Plan B was good in it, but overall not very memorable. They had D Box seats avaiable at the screening I went to. I was tempted but they wanted a fiver extra on top of my cineworld card, and I didn't know if it would be worth it.

 

[Reno]

Today I saw Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel, a very entertaining documentary about the Harper's Bazaar/Vogue editor, an interesting and eccentric character.

Then I saw Premium Rush, an attempt to make an action film like Speed with bicycles. Despite fancy graphics and camera work, the screenplay was about as sophisticated as something by the Children's Film Foundation. It really felt like a kids film from the 80s, with a hammy Michael Shannon as a ridiculous pantomime villain chasing after plucky bike messenger Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is fine as always but who deserves better material. It didn't make me like bike messengers any better even if they.

A couple of days ago I saw Hope Springs with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. It was a free screening I hasten to add. A good film could be made about a 60something couple trying to safe their dying marriage, but despite great performances from the leads, this goes too often for romantic comedy cutesiness. They decided to saturate this in soppy soft rock songs which clumsily spell out every emotion is case we didn't get it.