List the films you've seen at the cinema: 2019

[Throbbing Angel]

Off to watch Fight Club shortly. Blimey- 20 years.

 

[imposs1904]

Upstairs Planet: Cleaners From Venus & the Universe of Martin Newell (dir. Graham Bendel, 2019)

A free showing at a local(ish) university. Really enjoyed it. I didn't expect it to be so funny in places, and if it means more people get to discover the music of Martin Newell, then that can only be a good thing.

 

[Orang Utan]

Ad Astra
Yawn

 

[Sue]

Ad Astra
Yawn

I quite liked it.

 

[Orang Utan]

I quite liked it.

That voiceover killed it for me

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm with Sue. It had it's flaws (I thought the first half was significantly stronger than the second) but it was certainly an interesting film, and properly cinematic. Pitt was good and always good to see Sutherland and Lee Jones.

 

[8115]

Judy. Very good, heartbreakingly so. Renee Zellweger is fantastic. I went to see it after hearing something on the radio about it, I like Judy Garland but mostly on a punt on an autumn evening after work. Really enjoyed it, very insightful.

 

[PursuedByBears]

Inna De Yard

A lovely film that follows the recording of an acoustic reggae album which sees the old guard pull together with the youth and passing the baton.

It's sweet and funny and sad in equal measures. Each of these artists have their own poignant tale of survival, their music and their culture.

It's worth watching just to see inside Ken Boothe's bedroom.

The tunes are obviously great.

Saw it tonight; much more bittersweet than I expected. Will look out for it on Netflix etc and watch it again.

 

[Abscissa5]

Seems like you have got an amazing cinema.

 

[Orang Utan]

Seems like you have got an amazing cinema.

we don't all go to the same cinema!

 

[Orang Utan]

Two films this weekend hit me in the feels big time. The Farewell and Inna Da Yard, both for very different reasons. The first is about family and the second is about music but both films are about love and how we articulate it. Highly recommended.

 

[Wilf]

I'm with Sue. It had it's flaws (I thought the first half was significantly stronger than the second) but it was certainly an interesting film, and properly cinematic. Pitt was good and always good to see Sutherland and Lee Jones.

I wasn't too keen on the voiceover and the parallels with couple of other films were a bit too obvious e.g. Solaris (stillness) and Apocalypse Now (search for the visionary gone mad). But still really enjoyed it.

 

[RubyToogood]

A failed anarchist writes:

Don't know how to say this, but I'll come straight out with it. I saw Downton Abbey last night. It was an explicit deal with partner, she'd come with me to watch something or other and I paid the price last night. Oh boy did I.

The nearest I can come to a review is that it works well, as the series does in terms of set design and visuals. Lots of one liners from Maggie Smith. But the fucking plot... Astonishingly inept pro-monarchist drivel where a former republican ends up doing something, well, let's say you wouldn't expect them to do. Every twee little story line ends up resolved happily, literally, every one. All the little people in the village and below stairs show their love and gratitude to their betters and Downton Abbey itself 'abides'. If it was possible to put the politics aside, it was still be a complete pile of cack. Astonishingly, most of the reviews seem to be quite positive, aside from noting that it was 'undemanding'.

I shamefacedly have to admit that I saw this too and totally concur. I went because I thought it might be enjoyable escapist nonsense and it scores extremely well on rottentomatoes.

It was just total fawning, obsequious drivel. If anything I came out more of an anarcho-socialist than I went in. So yeah. Go and see Downton and be radicalised.

 

[Sue]

Even a (completely non-political) friend with godawful taste in films was telling me how bad this was and how appalling its politics.

 

[8115]

The Day Shall Come. Comedy about a pastor in America who gets involved with the FBI. Directed by Chris Morris of 4 Lions fame. I only realised this when I got to the cinema and nearly went home because I thought 4 Lions was crap. But I enjoyed this and it made a good point.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Joker
enjoyed it a great deal

 

[DexterTCN]

Joker
enjoyed it a great deal

I've seen it twice at the cinema now.

Joachim is stunning in this. I may have recency bias but it blows away Ledger. That's not to detract from Ledger, standing on the shoulders of giants and all that, he raised the bar.

The bit where he's dancing for the kids in hospital, jesus.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Two films this weekend hit me in the feels big time. The Farewell and Inna Da Yard, both for very different reasons. The first is about family and the second is about music but both films are about love and how we articulate it. Highly recommended.

Yeah Farewell. Awkwafina
is born to be on screen. It's a rare film that tackles the loss that accompanies migration.

Am unlikely to see a better film this year than this Indian Himalayas film "The Gold-Laden Sheep & The Sacred Mountain." Probably not coming to a screen near you sadly....

 

[Wilf]

Well at least you can remind her of this the next time she wants you to go and see something godawful.

I don't know how to admit this, but I'm returning to the scene of the crime. I'm over at my elderly Mum's who can't really go out on her own now. Asked her if she wanted to go to the flicks and... yes, that.

Maybe it's an ancient mariner thing and I'm compelled to keep watching it for all eternity. Or it could just be brexit - paying money to see something produced by a tory. Pray for me.

Mind, by the time I get back, johnson may or may not have signed a letter. There's a downton with my name on it and a ditch with his.

 

[Sue]

Oh Wilf . Can you get pissed and sleep through it or something..?

 

[Wilf]

Oh Wilf . Can you get pissed and sleep through it or something..?

I'm there now. Codeine, pregabalin and a can. I WILL survive.

 

[Sue]

I'm there now. Codeine, pregabalin and a can. I WILL survive.

Good luck!

 

[Wilf]

Good luck!

It was horrible. It was like the forced film watch in clockwork orange.

 

[Orang Utan]

Joker - the best thing about it was Hildur Guðnadóttir's score and the clips from Modern Times. Not much more than a very dark Batman origin story with a juvenile treatment of mental illness. 2 humourless incels out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Rockers (1979)
Saw this at my local as part of Black History Month. Fantastic and charming film about a young man grafting in Kingston, Jamaica. The entire cast are reggae royalty such as Gregory Isaacs and Burning Spear and there is some excellent neorealist-style footage of Jamaicans just living, at dances, gatherings and shops. There's even a lovely sequence of a 7" record being pressed. The music is brilliant and on the soundtrack constantly. 4 Bicycle Teeves out of 5

 

[A380]

Zombieland- Double Tap. Better than the first, funny and clever without being too clever for its own good.

 

[campanula]

heaving massive sighs.
I dunno why I check these threads (this and the Netflix one) unless it is some masochistic torture tendency. I might have hoped for some vicarious enjoyment but it doesn't really work like that - reading other people's reviews. I have been sincerely trying to sit through a film (I used to love the cinema) but find it impossible to manage. I have hung onto my Netflix sub in the hope of unlocking the key to my complete failure to manage more than 3 or 4 minutes. I have worked through nearly all the recommendations but find it demoralising that my attention is wandering, my feet are twitching, fingers tapping, mad sniffing, stretching, sighing. Truly bizarre. Even worse, it seems as though music is also on the point of vanishing from my life. I have no understanding of this whatsoever as I am perfectly capable of being still and concentrating on any number of tasks - I can knit for days, yet asked to sit and watch pretty much anything on a screen and I am all over the place. Apols for blurting dreary personal shit all over the thread - I feel as though I am in mourning, almost.

 

[Orang Utan]

Aniara.
Bleak Swedish scif-fi drama about the people on a huge spaceship hurtling towards nothing. Solaris meets High-Rise. Those ruddy Scandivians love a bit of misery and doom, don't they? 4 millennial space cults out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

The Last Tree
Drama about a British Nigerian boy who, after being brought up by a white foster mother in rural Lincolnshire, returns to his birth mother in inner city East London, and struggles with the usual teen challenges while struggling inside with his identity and the weight of the expectations other people have for him. This is writer/director Shola Amoo's first feature but it looks like it ain't, with some assured camerawork and alienating sound design. 4 primal screams out of 5

 

[Orang Utan]

Honeyland. Documentary about a wild beekeeper in Macedonia. I know this doesn't sound like an enticing prospect, but it is riveting. It has no commentary or interviews, it just shows the struggles of a lone female beekeeper in the mountain wilderness of Macedonia trying to make a living whilst caring for her elderly mother, but then a family arrive to work the land and her precarious existence is threatened, 4 depleted bee colonies out of 5