list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

TeleStrat wrote: I didn't care for (Apocalypse Now) Redux. I thought the original version stood well on it's own.

Edited by King Only - July 20 2016 at 22:25

I watched The American the other day. It's a slow-paced thriller about an assassin on a mission in the Italian countryside. Directed by Anton Corbijn (who was originally a music photographer, he's done many famous album covers). Stars George Clooney.

American sniper. I was pretty content with the film. Nice structure, acting. It's a very violent movie, yet realistic. Strong 4.5 stars [...]

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Edited by Logan - July 25 2016 at 05:21

Because I don't want to affiliate myself with any racist organisations. Forget race, I just want good people in my country.

Star Trek: Beyond

...or maybe "Be-yawn" would've been a better title.  

Seems the Star Trek franchise's Curse-of-the-Odd-Numbered-Flicks is back despite the promise and high hopes of the last two entries.   It's all in the writing, after all.   Everything; not just dialogue but storyline, pace, characters, subtleties and plot points, it all has to work and suspend us in a firm but fluid solution for at least two hours.   If not, I'll be cranky and less likely to come back next time--  simply put, don't hire a cast member to write your script, they're actors not creators.  It makes a difference.   And if the writing team are not people who love and know the premise intimately, there'll be hell to pay.   Or at least bad returns.

Idris Elba is good as main heavy Krall but everyone else seems to be along for ride, assuming, perhaps in vain, that next time it will be better.   Maybe, maybe not, but that's no excuse for a bad script, one that feels more like a TV episode than a feature film.   Things start okay but unravel fast and by the time the crew are strolling through a forest on an unknown planet, you kinda know they've lost it, dropped the ball, haven't worked hard enough, and worst of all don't seem to know they're in a Star Trek movie.   Still, I suppose it's better than the painful sight of a wheezing septuagenarian cast from the original show running around like they're thirty years old.  

But not much.

Just caught the trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first of the "Anthology Films" but considered number 9 in the series, scheduled to come out in December.  

It looks ... good ... that's right good, about the rebels who steal the Death Star plans that show-up later in A New Hope.   Instead of a tired J.J. Abrams directing, it will be Gareth Edwards and if the trailer is any indication it appears to be a real Star Wars extension rather than the uninformed fantasies of guys like Abrams.   The very good Felicity Jones will star as a young Rebel and the story looks to be made with the passion, if not the atmosphere, that the Star Wars canon deserves.






Edited by Atavachron - August 08 2016 at 23:22

The Bronze

Gymnastics farce with Melissa Rauch as a mean, over-the-hill Olympic medalist training a zealous young competitor.   Plenty of comedic potential but strangely lacking in actual laughs, The Bronze, in some mutant fusion of American Pie and Fargo, tries desperately to be the depraved gross-out flick of the summer but instead just disappoints.   Good cast including Gary Cole unable to save sincere but ill-conceived script by Rauch and hubby Winston.

Downfall

Despite the many fine reviews of this film, I'd avoided it due to the fact I'd seen so many of the parodies on-line, I didn't know whether I'd be able to take it seriously.

I needn't have worried - without a doubt, this is one of the finest WWII films I've ever seen. Bruno Ganz (?) is stunning as Hitler, portraying him, not as a complete and utter monster (that part of the character goes without saying), but as a sad, delusional man, watching his dreams of domination crumble around him as his advisers slowly but surely turn their backs. By turns gentle, violently angry, depressed, focussed and vague, Ganz puts in the performance of a lifetime.

Don't think this is a one man show, through - the supporting cast are all worthy of note (Except maybe, the actor portraying Martin Boorman whose only stage directions seem to be 'stand around looking worried'), especially those playing Josef & Magda Goebells - the final scenes with their children are heartbreaking.

I honestly cannot say enough good things about this film - it's by turns horrifying, funny (true), sad & always thought provoking.

Men Behind the Sun

More exploitation flavoured than I expected, although probably also historically accurate. Worth watching once, but would have been better with a plot.

Warcraft

Unremarkable if well-made myth/fantasy adventure based on the game.