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

RED

Loads of people in this 'retired black ops caper' thing. The jason bournes of yesteryear are goaded into action when blah blah karl urban leads the baddies. Fairly fun, malkovitch and freeman and bruce willis and some nonsense. 4.5/10

Helen Mirren in an evening dress firing a big fuck-off machine gun...
 
Blue is the Warmest Colour. Enjoyed it, even if it was a tad on the long side. Kept looking for blue in every scene. There was indeed lots of blue, though no idea what the significance was meant to be. :confused:
 
Jupiter Ascending.

lol
It was fun once you decide to switch the brain off for the duration. Very pretty, things go bang. Falls apart whenever there's too much "plot" exposition. Having seen it after reading all the horrible reviews, I enjoyed it.
 
In The Electric Mist

Tommy Lee Jones hallucinates and beats people up and I'm pretty sure he killed a woman. Also starring: the everglades
 
Midnight Special - interesting sci-fi/ road movie with a strong 80s feel. Well worth a watch.

I saw this last week and really like it.

The story is sparse in detail which isn't a bad thing. It comes together well in the boy's search for his place in a parallel world, his special abilities seen as either a direct line to God and imminent salvation (the apocalyptic religious cult to which he belonged), or an urgent and dangerous problem (the more powerful FBI-NSA agents) when it is discovered he can decode encrypted information from government satellites.

I like it that the film starts after the race against time to make the as yet unexplained rendezvous has begun. I also think the not so happy outcomes for the father, mother and friend (but sure they have done the right thing) ends it well and without mawkishness.
 
RED

Loads of people in this 'retired black ops caper' thing. The jason bournes of yesteryear are goaded into action when blah blah karl urban leads the baddies. Fairly fun, malkovitch and freeman and bruce willis and some nonsense. 4.5/10


Legion

This riffs a little on The Prophecy but not a lot its mainly a war-in-heaven horror siege monster demon thing. I give it a 6.5/10
that .5 goes to an early scene where michael cuts off his wings for reasons that go entirely unexplained.

It's cos he's rather noticeable with them on, and clumsy - like Gabriel is. I quite like Bettany as an action hero. He doesn't say a lot. He's good in "Priest" too, where - surprise! surprise! - Karl Urban plays a baddie!
 
Inside Llewn Davis. Second time round and (as with so many Coen Brothers flicks) I enjoyed it even more. Oscar Isaac is rather brilliant and I'd forgotten his Star Wars nemesis turns up as a fellow singer songwriter!
 
I saw this last week and really like it.

The story is sparse in detail which isn't a bad thing. It comes together well in the boy's search for his place in a parallel world, his special abilities seen as either a direct line to God and imminent salvation (the apocalyptic religious cult to which he belonged), or an urgent and dangerous problem (the more powerful FBI-NSA agents) when it is discovered he can decode encrypted information from government satellites.

I like it that the film starts after the race against time to make the as yet unexplained rendezvous has begun. I also think the not so happy outcomes for the father, mother and friend (but sure they have done the right thing) ends it well and without mawkishness.

For me, the film had glimpses of The Fury and in particular, Firestarter (the Raunch/ the Shop - government agencies etc) and thankfully didn't take the religion vs science route.
Does the film end unhappily? I figured it was how both parents felt when they saw their child's becoming - their reactions would be the same even if they stood outside of the walls (sacrifice n' all)
 
Unhappy as in the circumstances of the parents and the friend left behind, the cost of their sacrifice. The film is about the worries of parenthood and what parents are willing to do, to their own detriment, to ensure their children are protected and able to thrive but wearing the clothes of derivative sci-fi (the director, Jeff Nichols, has talked about John Carpenter as an influence for example).

While on the run the parents have to quickly deal with the realisation that they'll soon have to let their son go. They (with a large part of the US) catch a glimpse of the world 'built on top of this one,' where the boy truly belongs with disembodied humanoid beings of light (lol), but the father never gets to see his son make the other-worldly crossing when he and his friend decide to make a diversion for pursuing soldiers, allowing mother and son to run for it. He knows it's happening, as he had an earlier glimpse of this parallel world when he let his ailing boy see the sunrise, but given the chase his is a very brief goodbye.

The final scene shows the father chained up in a prison yard looking up at the sun. He knows his son has made it, but his own prospects (likely to rot behind bars) are looking grim.
 
After giving up on Deadpool after 20 minute because I found it absolutely repellent from "hilariously self-aware" title sequence onwards, I watched an anthology horror film called Holidays, which was wasn't very good either, with only one decent segment (the Father's Day one)
 
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It was fun once you decide to switch the brain off for the duration. Very pretty, things go bang. Falls apart whenever there's too much "plot" exposition. Having seen it after reading all the horrible reviews, I enjoyed it.

I knew nothing about it before I watched it (I'm not a big film watcher, neither do I pay much attention to film news). Honestly, my best experiences have been going in with no idea (Devil's Advocate was an amazing experience, expecting your average crime drama).

But this was... well. It was a total mess. I suppose enjoyably so, but a total mess. Kunis' character was so passive, zero character growth. Space Puck lived up to his character concept, and was nothing but a pathetic doting puppy. Eddie Redmayne's voice, omg. It had bits from every kind of film you can imagine: Superman, Harry Potter, everything Marvel, meets low-budget Maid in Manhattan. I mean, it was enjoyable in the sense that it was a curiosity, but even the set pieces with all the 'splosions and so on had me drifting off into my own little world because they were directionless, pointless, and mostly boring.

There were some redeeming features, and as I say overall I enjoyed the experience of watching it, even if I didn't enjoy it as a film.
 
I don't get how two people who can do somethng as quality as sense 8 can also do Jupiter Ascending. I liked jupiter Ascending for its mental visual rides but it was eyewateringly bad in every other respect. Bogbrush realism, ham fisted space opera stuff sort of jammed in there while not making any sense at all. The flyng boots were cool tho.
 
Batman vs Superman - Dawn of Justice

Perhaps the shittiest and heacachey of a fucked up film I've seen since Spawn. Utter pants.
There's also something about Ben Affleck. He strikes me as racist who throws poo at Koreans and Mexicans while spitting at poor people. Avoid.
 
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I don't get how two people who can do somethng as quality as sense 8 can also do Jupiter Ascending. I liked jupiter Ascending for its mental visual rides but it was eyewateringly bad in every other respect. Bogbrush realism, ham fisted space opera stuff sort of jammed in there while not making any sense at all. The flyng boots were cool tho.
I thought Sense 8 was plenty silly as well. It's closer to Cloud Atlas, which is loads of silly too, but which I rather liked. Just about the only thing they've done which I think is really great is their debut film Bound.
 
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Banshee season 4 episode 4 . What's not to like about a town with Neo nazis, Amish gangsters, black ops, women vigilantes , santanic cults and a murder investigation of a young woman
 
I'm up to episode 7 with American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson. This gets better and better as it goes on, especially once prosecuter Marcia Clark becomes the central character. There is plenty about how the media treat professional, hard working, competent women which is perceptive and smart. The way the press almost exclusively fixated on her hair style and how this contributed to her being seen as unsympathetic and was a reason to dismiss and humiliate her (and which in turn benefited the Simpson case) is depressing but all too common. Sarah Paulson is great in the role and deserves every TV acting award going.
 
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I watched the new Star Wars film. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan and this didn't make me into one either but it was alright. It bobbed along at a decent pace and did a great job at recapturing the look and feel of the original trilogy, sometimes a little too well. Like the original first Star Wars it feels a little underpowered dramatically, but it's a better film with more appealing lead actors. I think it's the second best Star Wars film after Empire, but I can also see why after the initial excitement died down, it was forgotten about by the time the awards season and year's best lists came out. It's just another servicable blockbuster.
 
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Deadpool. It was ok. Not as funny as it thinks it is and the conciet of having the hero just the sort of obnoxious twat you imagine as the ur-fan so often mocked works well enough. Generally though its not that good. Action sequences carried it otherwise I would have given up 3/10
 
I watched the new Star Wars film. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan and this hasn't made me into one either but it was alright. It bobbed along at a decent pace and did a great job at recapturing the look and feel of the original trilogy, sometimes a little too well. Like the original first Star Wars it feels a little underpowered, but it's a better film with more appealing lead actors. Second best Star Wars film after Empire.
Controversial! Everyone knows that Return Of The Jedi is the best!
 
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