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

Drinking Buddies - Indie improv romcom set in a brewery. Olivia Wilde and Anna Kendrick are the only names I recognised. But all the cast are good and it feels real.

The Debt - Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson. Mossad drama set in 60s and 90s. Not bad at all; script from Vaughan and Goldman (but nothing likes Kick Ass, Kingsman etc) and what really helped was that I knew nothing about it or had seen any trailers. I didn't even read the blurb on the back of the casing so it was a "nice" surprise.
 
The Program (2015). Lance Armstrong Biopic. Might be more interesting to those who didn't follow the sport too closely over the time in question, but as it is it tries to cover too much and the result is that it misses out key moments and key figures. I'd forgive that if it had managed to do a better job of what it did cover, but I didn't feel I knew any of the characters better by the end of the film than the start and structurally it was a little confused about what it wanted to do imo.
 
Welcome to the Rileys - One of James Gandolfini's last roles, starring alongside, the always excellent, Melissa Leo, and a fairly good Kristen Stewart. It's a decent little indie flick about grief and growing up and moving on in life. Little happens, but the performance keep it rolling nicely, and it's always good to see JG outside of The Sopranos.
 
Full English Breakfast

a brit gangster film starring Dave Courtney. Avoid at all costs. If you see any physical copies, destroy them -1/10

e2a

the imdb reviews are better than the film:

"This is a truly amateurish attempt at making a movie. It isn't as good as the student movies found for free on youtube.

The script is the strongest element, and even that is dreadful. It is completely predictable, simplistic and clichéd. It is however much better than the direction.

The cast are uniformly embarrassing, even making allowances for the complete incompetence of Manish Patel's direction. Even amongst the general low level of acting special mention must be made of Lucy Drive, whose expression never changes even when someone is trying to kick her to death.Some unkind viewers have suggested that Drive's permanent befuddled expression hints at a fondness for Dopey Dave's Dodgy Drugs.I think there may be another explanation. Dave Courtney plays dave Bishop, Jamie Bannerman plays Jamie, poor Lucy plays dave's wife Susie. The poor thing has to remember a slightly different name, and this takes up much of her acting ability.

There is entertainment to be had if you abandon the idea of this film as a thriller and laugh at the incompetence.

I screamed with laughter when Dave picked jamie as his driver because he drove tanks in the army. " tanks, motorbikes, helicopters it's all the same"revealing why he is not a criminal mastermind. And he's the CLEVER brother.

One would need a heart of stone not to laugh when the drug dealer's wife ( the wooden spoon of trophy wives) tries to seduce Jamie on the nightclub dancefloor. The sight of the two of them hopping pathetically from foot to fooot like embarrassed eleven year olds at a school disco has to be seen to be believed."
 
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Nanker Phelge said:
Welcome to the Rileys - One of James Gandolfini's last roles, starring alongside, the always excellent, Melissa Leo, and a fairly good Kristen Stewart. It's a decent little indie flick about grief and growing up and moving on in life. Little happens, but the performance keep it rolling nicely, and it's always good to see JG outside of The Sopranos.
Click to expand...

Missed out on this one for some reason..will download now! I quite liked the film he did with Jl Dreyfus called Enough Said, JG being romantic and a big softie..worth a watch.

RIP big man.
 
DotCommunist said:
Full English Breakfast
Click to expand...

I admire the reckless adventurism of a fellow pilgrim; not for us the banal safety of fair-to-middling, quite-well-known, moderately successful films - no, we must seek after the gems no one else has heard of. And our desire to find these gems means we have to sieve through an awful lot of the shit that drips out of the creatively diarrheoal arses of people like Dave Courtney.

Sir, I salute your indefatigability.
 
I hoped it would be a nice series of crap but entrtaining geezer film shorts done on the cheap themed around the idea of the breakfast somehow. Fuck me it was bad. The random al queda element with a man avenging his murdered brother Habib was particularly...inspired.
 
DaveCinzano said:
I admire the reckless adventurism of a fellow pilgrim; not for us the banal safety of fair-to-middling, quite-well-known, moderately successful films - no, we must seek after the gems no one else has heard of. And our desire to find these gems means we have to sieve through an awful lot of the shit that drips out of the creatively diarrheoal arses of people like Dave Courtney.

Sir, I salute your indefatigability.
Click to expand...

Then again there are obscure films which show potential and then there are obscure films which are among the worst reviewed of the year and which look horrible just from the title and one glimpse at the poster.
 
I watched The Wolf Of Wall Street a few nights back. It was a bit 'Goodfellas' but with stockbrokers instead of mafiosi and consequently not as good. Leonardo DiCaprio was pretty good although he was pretty much channeling Jack Nicholson. The 'trying to drive on quaaludes' bit was genuinely funny. At the end I thought it was OK but nothing original. But I keep thinking back to bits of it a few days later - it's stuck with me - and that's always a good sign. I might watch it again some time, see if it grows on me. Even when Martin Scorsese's just sticking to the formula he's still good.
 
A Child is Waiting (1963). This was one of the few studio films the godfather of the American indie film John Cassavetes directed, starring Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland and Gena Rowlands. It's about an institute for mentally handicapped children at a time when the best way to deal with them was considered to separate them from the rest of the world. Parents were persuaded that the best way of dealing with handicapped children was to hand them over to institutionalise them. The film is a little mawkish in places, but overall it's quite good if rather depressing. It's about new teacher Garland becoming close to one of the kids who has been abandoned by his parents and clashing with disciplinarian principal Lancaster over how to deal with the boy. Apparently Cassavetes disowned the film because he didn't have final cut but despite melodramatic moments, there is a docudrama quality to the film which shows his influence. Gena Rowlands as the boy's mother is like the blueprint for Mad Men's Betty Draper.
 
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Moneyball (2011). Film adaptation of the book about Oakland Athletics coach Billy Bene who used a statistical analysis in an attempt to win the World Series on a shoe-string budget. The book was pretty interesting but the film isn't that great. Though in saying that I did watch it all the way through and didn't notice that it ran for 2 hours, so can't have that bad either.
 
Beasts Of No Nation
Amazing film set in a fictional country, tracking the experiences of a child soldier. Brilliant acting throughout, especially the lead.
 
Sicario (2015). FBI agent joins a taskforce working on dismantling the Mexican drug cartels. The second half of the film didn't hit the mark quite so much for me, but pretty good. Some of the camera shots are proper lovely - especially in the scenes around Juarez. Reminded me of the wide angle shots of the scenery and terrain you see in proper old Westerns.
 
Finally got around to watching Leviathan. Loved it. I don't get why everyone says it's so irrepressibly grim. It's full of funny bits and cheer in various places, and next to The Selfish Giant it's practically uplifting. Yes, yes, it's Russia so it's not exactly happy, but I like that.

I just hope the cast weren't Method actors, or they're going to need new livers shortly.
 
Spectre

Daniel Craig's Bond finally goes full homage. And suffers massively as a result.

Tepid action sequences (seriously one of the most boring car chases I've ever watched), shoe-horned plot contrivances and relationships, no real spying, and it goes on about 30 minutes too long. Again. (fucks sake Mendes, just end a film).

Monica Belluci wasted as a character in favour of a bland damsel-in-distress too.

I don't mind campy Bond, but you've got to go for it. Spectre holds back, trying to retain the gritty Bond, and as a result achieves neither.

Time for a new team to have a crack I think.
 
You Only Live Twice - Dodgy moments aside (sexism, racism etc) it still looks great (apart from volcano bit)
8Mile - Really enjoyed this; Eminem didn't suck as an actor
Mystery Road - Aaron Pederson, Hugo Weaving and Jason Stackhouse in disadvantaged community murder drama. Depressing but brilliant

Oh and we finished Sense8. Really like it. I can see how some people might find it infuriating to begin with but by the end it's mesmerising.
 
There's a film on Amazon Prime called New Years Eve. It's a fucking stinker. It has a huge cast, featuring a good few oscar winners, and it is possibly the worst film ever.

It makes those xmas tele-movies on channel five look like Citizen Kane.

How they hooked in so many names to do so very little is a fucking mystery. I can only imagine the producer is in the secret selling business and had blackmailed them all to appear.
 
Deep Red by Dario Argento, the greatest giallo ever, in a fantastic new restoration on Blu-ray. This was the third time I've watched it and it may now have overtaken Suspiria as my favourite Argento. It may even be working its way into my list of time favourite films. It also kicks Antonioni's ass, being similar to Blow Up and even starring David Hemmings, but it's a hell of a lot more fun and at least as stylish. The camera work and use of architecture and locations is simply stunning. The prog rock score by The Goblin initially takes some getting used to, but it is genius. And apart from the staggeringly violent set pieces, in the director's cut at least there is so much interesting stuff going on in terms of sexual politics and gender. While not exactly progressive, the way the film deals with feminism and its gay characters is unusual for a giallo.
 
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Mad Max Fury Road

Thought I should get something flashy for our first Blu ray watch, and it certainly looked quite impressive. Some of it is very silly indeed (that guitarist :facepalm:), and I found bits of its visual style irritating, but it was mostly a very enjoyable romp, and a fairly clever reimagining.
 
belboid said:
Mad Max Fury Road

Thought I should get something flashy for our first Blu ray watch, and it certainly looked quite impressive. Some of it is very silly indeed (that guitarist :facepalm:), and I found bits of its visual style irritating, but it was mostly a very enjoyable romp, and a fairly clever reimagining.
Click to expand...
The guitarist is comedy gold ! (and intended as such)
 
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