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

Watched Suicide Squad on ITV2 last night.

Okay, yes it's a bit of a hot mess, but it's nowhere near as bad as the RT crowd seem to think it is. I'd love to see the original cut, which was supposedly more black humour, less blockbuster nonsense.
Though there was the plot hole of
If Harley's nanobomb was disabled by Joker halfway through the film, why is she back in jail at the end of it? She could have just said "See yas!" and wandered off around a bombed out Toronto.
 
I went and saw "Nobody" in the theater. The theater was empty and I had a private showing. I have to start by saying that this is an incredibly bad movie. Its plotting is silly and the dialogue is worse. The whole thing is implausible. I like Bob Odenkirk, but I'm not certain he's an action star, but he certainly gave it his best. That said, it was still a fun romp once you decide that its just a dungeon crawl, where the idea is to kill as many monsters as quickly and efficiently as possible.
 
Was this a play or a film?
ETA: I guess it must be a film considering this thread. The word theatre confused me

Film:

Nobody (2021) - IMDb

I think part of their marketing is to send it to the theaters while there's nothing else playing for weirdos like me who will still go to the theater to see a movie. They sanitize the seats for your protection. LOL.

Same director as John Wick.
 
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Film:

Nobody (2021) - IMDb

I think part of their marketing is to send it to the theaters while there's nothing else playing for weirdos like me who will still go to the theater to see a movie. They sanitize the seats for your protection. LOL.

Same director as John Wick.
Over here, plays are performed in theatres, not films. There’s another thread for cinema outings. Can’t wait for the cinemas to open again, so I can bomb the thread with reviews - May 17th!
 
Over here, plays are performed in theatres, not films. There’s another thread for cinema outings. Can’t wait for the cinemas to open again, so I can bomb the thread with reviews - May 17th!

Please excuse my Americanism. Some of them never closed here. We have an art theater that's continued to play international stuff, and then we have a chain that shut down all but one or two venues, but stayed open.
 
The Power. A new horror/ thriller British film set in in a London hospital during the 1970s strikes and power cuts era.

I enjoyed it. Not necessarily as a horror film (I like my proper genre horror films to be sufficiently scary or creepy, and this one doesn’t quite hit the mark, but fwiw it never intended to anyway). But it certainly works well as a thriller with a tinge of horror/ mystery mixed in. All the better as it incorporates the social background of social unrest and strike action in 1970s’ Britain, as well as something else I won’t mention as to not to spoil things.

As the film approaches its business end, and it becomes apparent it’s much less of a supernatural horror story than a compelling thriller story with a social message, it suddenly became much better, and by its climax all but transforms into an edge-of-seat thriller.

Whilst not amazing, it’s perfectly alright, and much more so in the second half of the film once you realise this is far from a scare jump ghost story.
 
Please excuse my Americanism. Some of them never closed here. We have an art theater that's continued to play international stuff, and then we have a chain that shut down all but one or two venues, but stayed open.

Please don't apologise for not speaking the same as the British do. In Ireland, we'd be going to the pictures or filums.
 
Punishment Park. Mentioned a few times in the thread. Early 70s'mockumentary' where young radical thinkers are given the choice between long prison sentences and 3 days in Punishment Park. Unbeknown to them the 3 days in the park involves being hunted across desert without food or water by cops and soldiers. It's on Mubi atm, well worth a look.
 
Best Summer Ever
Feelgood high school musical, much along the lines of Grease, and as satisfyingly predictable and formulaic as the rest, except for one aspect: most of the cast and many of the crew have physical and/or mental disabilities. This is a labour of love and it succeeds on all points - to make a cracking high school musical and also to be as inclusive as possible. There’s cameos from Maggie Gyllenhall, Peter Saasgard and Benjamin Bratt, who also helped get it made. Bratt’s daughter, Sophia, who had disabilities, also has a cameo and so does Zack from Peanut Butter Falcon.
Loved every minute of it and I normally hate musicals, especially high school ones.
 
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The Spy Who Loved Me, one of my top 5 bond films, and one I’ve not seen for a few years, so happy to enjoy again on TV tonight
 
Promising Young Woman


Blimey, that was good. Carey Mulligan is magnificent, Bo Burnham plays his role to a T. It's all so horribly believable. That bloke who wrote that stupid review was not only completely wrong, but he missed the entire point by a mile.
Just watched it. Really bloody good. I had already seen the glowing reviews so it was no surprise, but whereas decent enough, the opening act doesn’t suggest how much more engaging the film gets from there.

I must say this though:
I found her death one of the most upsetting scenes I can think of. Both because of the sense of injustice, and the agonisingly long time it all took.

FWIW the ending went a long way towards redeeming the sense of injustice angle, and as I cool down I’m starting to consider her fate an important part of what makes this film good, and certainly that makes it something other than your cliched revenge thriller.

Oscars tomorrow. Good to see this is competing in various categories including best leading female actor. I haven’t seen any of the other nominees, but Mulligan would be a worthy recipient on the strength of this.

By far the best film I’ve ever seen Sky get involved with. Given the unspeakable garbage they often produce even to this day, this is a refreshing change.
 
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Anyone else watching Barkskins? A decent cast but the first episode was a bit slow in that I'm still not sure what the plot is going to be.

just seen this post about the book so maybe that explains it?

Barkskins by Annie Proulx.

I'm three quarters in and still waiting for it to get going
 
Anyone else watching Barkskins? A decent cast but the first episode was a bit slow in that I'm still not sure what the plot is going to be.

just seen this post about the book so maybe that explains it?

Can't remember the book at all. It made no lasting impression on me at
 
This...which is Chris Morris's first short film starring Paddy Considine. Piss funny.



Then Pusher 3, which isn't funny at all and in fact one of the most brutal and intense 100 minutes of film. I'd vaguely remembered the setting for it while watching one of the first 2 films but none of the story. Such a great trilogy.
 
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The Knick. A 2014-5 two season drama series set around the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York in the early 20th century.

It’s actually really bloody good. I can’t believe I hadn’t even heard of it until now.

 
Mortal Kombat (2021)

Extra gory, a good entrant to the stable of MK films and animations. They've eased up on the banging techno for the fights, which is a mistake but its still there a bit. In a change to usual MK fiction the film (and the animated prequel) focus on the sub-zero/scorpion rivalry as the heart driving the usual outworld vs earth plot. I don't know who the new Raiden actor is, but he is not as good as Christopher Lambert's Raiden. 7/10 sound popcorn fayre.
 
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JoJo Rabbit

I'd avoided seeing it before as the trailer made it look crass slapstick. How wrong I was.

Very funny and poignant with great performances from the young leads

Highly recommended
 
Promising young woman.

It was awful, bad acting, bad writing, rubbish storyline.

I'm talking Boxing Helena type bad..so bad it was funny.

Can't believe the high ratings it's received on RT 🤔
 
I watched Nobody last night, I thought it was really good fun - the less you know about it, the better, as part of the enjoyment is trying to work out what kind of film it's going to turn out to be. Odenkirk is a great actor - can't separate him from Saul now, but it still works.
 
Series of Billy Wilder films based on Melbourne Cinematheque season. Wilder is a director that, while I respect his body of work, I often feel a little cold, untouched by his films so interesting to see five in short succession, overall I have a better liking of his work than I did before
- Mauvaise Graine - French film Wilder made between leaving Germany and moving to the states. It is a talky film but is strongly influenced by the early silent films. It is not really especially Wilder-ish, though I think you can see certain elements of his later style there. An interesting film rather than a classic.
- The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes - not even heard of this before this season and I'm very pleased that I've now seen it. It really is excellent (and a huge influence on other adaptations/versions of Holmes) and very enjoyable film, just the right balance of comedy, mystery and action. I definitely recommend it.
- Ace In the Hole - Excellent, really quite vicious satire/drama starring Kirk Douglas as the newspaperman who will go to long lengths to get a good story. Douglas is fantastic, this may be his best performance that I've seen (certainly better than the famous Spartacus). As in the previous film Wilder balances the dry wit, social satire and more broad comedy elements excellently.
- Kiss Me, Stupid - Dean Martin (playing a fictional version of himself) gets stuck in a small town. Some aspiring songwriters want to sell him their songs but one of them is afraid that Dino will seduce his wife. To stop this he gets Kim Novak, a waitress/prostitute to take the role of his wife while Dino stays in his house. The premise is not bad but the script is just not good enough (strange for Wilder film) and the whole thing just drags on. And one does not much liking, or even sympathy with Dino or the songwriters. Novak's character is the heart of the film but she does not turn up until about a third of the way through. A big disappointment compared with the previous films.
- The Major and the Minor - Considering the central plot of this film - bloke falling in love with a woman 'disguised' as a twelve year old - it should not work, but it does. The script is good but Rodgers is the real star, while she Rodgers does not look 12, or anything like it, she does manage to create enough of a persona (or rather two persona's) and energy that I could not help going along with it. What in the hands of many would just be creepy and sleazy manages to retain a charm and even a certain sweetness under Wilder.
- (final film in the Melbourne Cinematheque season was Stalag 17, which I watched about a year ago)

This Boys Life - The film where Leonardo DiCaprio got his big break playing opposite DeNiro. It's one of those troubled 50s childhood films that were big at the time and despite the cast (Ellen Barkin, Carla Gugino and a very young Eliza Dushku all also make appearances) it is absolutely by the numbers. No surprises, lots of stuff you've seen before and all a bit dull with the attempt to be worthy. Don't bother

Tigerland - Joel Schumacher and Colin Farrell do a (Vietnam) war film, I had bad forebodings about this film but it very pleasantly surprised me. It's a far more subtle and intelligent piece of filmmaking that I expected. Schumacher's decision to base the whole film in the US, during the training of the soldiers is a good one, allowing the film to focus on a relatively small cast and keeps the film a tight 100 minutes. Farrell is actually very good in his role and Matthew Davies delivers a decent supporting performance. I'm not sure that this is not a better film than many of the Vietnam classics.

Dheepan - I liked Read My Lips and consider A Prophet to be excellent, but while I enjoyed Rust and Bone I felt it lacked something in comparison with Audiard's previous work. Dheepan is seriously good. The changing relationships between the three 'family' members is developed brilliantly, there is nothing wasted, nothing extraneous, a moving film with a humanistic core.

Plan 9 from Outer Space - The classic 'worst film of all time'. It is not really, it's very silly and takes far, far too long to get going but the last 20 minutes (with the aliens as anti-hero's is even quite interesting in the context of the 50s). I've certainly seem many more objectionable films and/or films I dislike more. It's just a bit boring, I guess it is of certain interest to cinephiles for the history aspect but for most people I would not bother with it.
 
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