What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

[The Boy]

The Atticus Institute (2015). Purported to be a found footage film, but is really a mockumentary with smatterings of found footage used within it. Centres on a unit studying psychic abilities which was apparently commandeered by the us military when a bona fide possessed patient end up in their care.

Scores 5.2 on imdb which should make it a classic of the genre, but in reality it's absolute garbage. Avoid.

 

[Idris2002]

More Callan. They really don't make them like this anymore.

 

[krtek a houby]

The Wolf of Wall Street - A glorious celebration of capitalist succcess or a searing indictment of capitalist excess? You chose. It's possibly the best Scorsese in years and DiCaprio has never been better.

I Know Where I'm Going - Powell and Pressburger classic. Romance, ceilidhs and social climbing in the Hebrides.

Making a Murderer - We finished it this weekend. If you haven't seen it yet; do so.

Sense8 - I thought this was going to be another "Heroes". It's not. The Wachowskis have created an interconnected thriller/comic book/sci fi odyssey & gosh only knows where it's all going but am enjoying the ride.

 

[Maharani]

Watched The Gift on Sunday, really could have been a cliched psychological thriller but it wasn't. It was brilliantly made, with a good couple of twists. I haven't screamed like I did watching this in a long time! Very entertaining indeed.

 

[krtek a houby]

Finished Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt last night. Starts slowly, gets great. Looking forward to the second season.

First 2 eps are a bit meh but by the end of the season, I'm thinking "more, please!"

 

[belboid]

First 2 eps are a bit meh but by the end of the season, I'm thinking "more, please!"

Quite. First couple were 'oh Tina, how lowly you have fallen' but by the end....waiting for S2 with breath appropriately bated (April 15, not long to go)

 

[Orang Utan]

Watch it again sometime...it's totally different...and still superb.

How is it different on second viewing? I thought it was great.

 

[Orang Utan]

My only issue is how it got on the plane when the pilot had come to collect someone else...didn't understand that but its a small gripe.

It? She!

Spoiler

she got away. The pilot was probably just instructed to pick up whoever was waiting. Loved how it ended. Like Blade Runner but much more hopeful.
Loved the abuse subtext too. She escapes the horrible men and gets to fulfil her dream of just people watching - all she wants is to be amongst peope. brilliant ending.

 

[belboid]

It? She!

Spoiler

she got away. The pilot was probably just instructed to pick up whoever was waiting. Loved how it ended. Like Blade Runner but much more hopeful.
Loved the abuse subtext too. She escapes the horrible men and gets to fulfil her dream of just people watching - all she wants is to be amongst peope. brilliant ending.

I thought

Spoiler

she was simply able to send a message saying that there had been a slight change of plan. She would have to come up with an excuse as to why Caleb wasn't going back to work as well. So she must have told them he was staying on for a other week or so, at least. A shot of her doing something to imply communication with the outside world would have been nice, but it was all clearly within her capabilities.

 

[DotCommunist]

American Ultra

pretty weak stuff about some pothead who is a manchurian candidate and is triggered to wakefulnes before a rogue splinter of the CIA can take him out. I wasn't expecting more than popcorn fayre but if I'd payed to see that I'd be annoyed. Leads don't carry it and nor does story. a grudging 5/10

its not as good as kinsmen and kingsmen was no more than entertaining fluff

 

[Orang Utan]

Kingsmen was a nasty little film

 

[DotCommunist]

well one thing American Ultra has over Kingsmen is it doesn't contain some fucked up misogyny. I think they were going for some sort of old school bond nod wink chuavanism and failed horrifically. If I'm being generous to the scriptwriter. Still, worth it for the church massacre

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Housebound - Kiwi horror-comedy. Original and fun. I liked it a lot.

 

[belboid]

Housebound - Kiwi horror-comedy. Original and fun. I liked it a lot.

great film. For some reason the yanks are remaking it. The accents aren't that bloody hard to understand

 

[Nanker Phelge]

great film. For some reason the yanks are remaking it. The accents aren't that bloody hard to understand

Well...I'm glad I chanced upon this version. It was just a random play....so I was well pleased.

 

[DexterTCN]

How is it different on second viewing? I thought it was great.

Still great second time, but different.

 

[Orang Utan]

Still great second time, but different.

How though?

 

[DexterTCN]

How though?

Spoiler

Because the second time you know from the start she's planning the whole thing.

 

[sovereignb]

It? She!

Spoiler

she got away. The pilot was probably just instructed to pick up whoever was waiting. Loved how it ended. Like Blade Runner but much more hopeful.
Loved the abuse subtext too. She escapes the horrible men and gets to fulfil her dream of just people watching - all she wants is to be amongst peope. brilliant ending.

Spoiler

Dont get me wrong i really liked the film...I was rooting for her but she probably managed to manipulate the pilot the same way she did with the visitor and us

 

[Orang Utan]

The first spoiler tag needs the / removing from it

 

[belboid]

Spoiler

Because the second time you know from the start she's planning the whole thing.

hmm, philosophically dubious. There isn't the evidence in the script to say that that is what happens - it's a plausible interpretation, for sure, but not the only one. But that is, I hope, one of the joys of the film, that it should allow reviewings where we can can see it with this possibility, or that one, and see how that affects our judgement of it.
Aah, I was going to try and do this without spoiler tags, but I will have to give up on that now...

Spoiler

I think the interesting thing will be to go back and try to work out just when she starts plotting. Having never met more than one human being before, they (yes, I'm going with 'they', gender being bullshit n all, an absolute construct in this instance - but there's another interesting question it throws up) can't know anything about how they will respond, or even whether there really is an 'outside' to go to.

 

[belboid]

Spoiler: still Ex Machina

My only issue is how it got on the plane when the pilot had come to collect someone else...didn't understand that but its a small gripe.

dunno if you can still put a spoiler around that, but as it is at the end of the film...

There is a bigger problem

Spoiler

wtf didn't Nathan implement Asimov's Three Laws? Or something similar, at least replacing 'a human being' with 'Nathan')

 

[fishfinger]

dunno if you can still put a spoiler around that, but as it is at the end of the film...

There is a bigger problem

Spoiler: still Ex Machina

wtf didn't Nathan implement Asimov's Three Laws? Or something similar, at least replacing 'a human being' with 'Nathan')

Spoiler

Hubris.

 

[krtek a houby]

well one thing American Ultra has over Kingsmen is it doesn't contain some fucked up misogyny. I think they were going for some sort of old school bond nod wink chuavanism and failed horrifically. If I'm being generous to the scriptwriter. Still, worth it for the church massacre

My wife's favourite scene!

 

[8115]

I didn't really rate Ex Machina.

I think it was all the "sexy robot" stuff.

 

[Voley]

I watched 'Montage Of Heck', the film about Kurt Cobain this evening. Really good, this, I thought. Fairly warts-n-all, some good concert footage, nice to hear some demo versions of songs you know and love etc. It filled a few gaps in the story that I've always wondered about (the Rome OD particularly) but some of the bits of him and Courtney smacked up to the eyeballs are difficult to watch. Necessary part of the story mind. Not sure if the animations worked that well, either, but a good film. 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night' off Unplugged still sends shivers down my spine even now.

 

[Reno]

Spectre. As the Daniel Craig films go not as good as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but still a perfectly serviceable Bond film and far better than Quantum of Solace (but then, what isn't). Bonus points for blowing up one of my least favourite London buildings....again!

Ben Wishaw is a Q after my own heart ("I've got a mortgage and two cats to feed"). And as I didn't see this at the cinema, when M says "Now I know what "C" stands for" and he leaves a pause, did everybody blurt out "Cunt" ?

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Cavalry - Brendan Gleeson in a darkly comic drama about a Priest who is told in confession that he will be killed on the beach on Sunday. The film follows him in the week up to the time of his threatened death.

Gleeson puts in another great performanace, as does the rest of the cast, which is full of recognisable faces from Irish cinema and other corners of the indie cinema world.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Cavalry

 

[trabuquera]

Good (2008) starring Viggo Mortensen - supposed to be an examination of how even decent German people got sucked into the Nazi whirlpool in the 1930s. Sadly the film is not, in fact, all that good - mediocre at best - though everyone's trying hard, it looks fine and and there is some OK acting from the (predominantly British) cast. It's interesting as an experiment in teasing out sympathy or at least understanding for 'the average German' but it's not quite compelling enough; there's a psychoanalytical strand, including some musical hallucinations, which doesn't quite work. And - just like it happened in real history! - the account of how the characters suddenly find themselves in the middle of a genocidal hellhole and it's all so surprising to them, doesn't quite ring true.