What is The Last Movie You Watched?

Infinitum: Subject Unknown (Matthew Butler-Hart, 2021)

Shot on an iPhone during the lockdown of 2020, mostly in Crouch End in North West London (I confess I bought a kebab there once, and ate it on the way home), this film is derived in part from the Isaac Asimov Foundation books, with implied links to 'mind control' experiments such as MKultra. The problem is that the captive woman frees herself in a cycle of repeated situations, choosing options each time that give the film its narrative drive, but we never know why she was in captivity, and if this was an experiment by the clinic named at the start of the film, or because of some war that seems to have happened, is happening, and the suggestion of surveillance due to an airship. Any hope of a big 'reveal' at the end of the film fizzles out. Just as we are permanently doomed to repeat our lives again and again, tweaking this scene and that, so one hopes people will not be encouraged to see this film again and again, though it is not that bad to look at.

The new Top Gun

The Outfit

The Hitman's Bodyguard - Sam Jackson

Jurassic World-Dominion

Nobody.... It's a great John wick type action film.... Right down to his daughters cat being stolen setting his rampage off instead of his Dog lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by luv4Tgirls

The new Top Gun

---

I can't wait to see it, I'm. Huge Tom cruise fan since Risky Business. He's in my Top 5 all time
Tom Cruise
Tom Hanks
Jack Nicholson
Johnny Depp
And Brad Pitt in no specific order are my top five favorite actors and I would recommend their whole filmography to anyone who hasn't seen any of their films.

Bob's Burgers - The Movie

Kudos to the little local cinema for screening this on premiere. Not sure that they understood how it sits between kid's cartoons and adult films but it was half-term coming-up and they took a gamble, fair play to them. That being said there was no one else in the cinema on this initial Thursday afternoon matinee so guess their target audience was still doing after-school clubs and homework etc.

It was good to see it on the big screen but the storyline lacked ambition and some of the character's quirks were underplayed. Conspicuously missing was Bob's nemesis Jimmy Pesto (you only see a peek of him sweeping outside his restaurant from inside Bob's place) because the actor was sacked after he'd been involved in the January 6 riots on the Capitol. The songs didn't quite deliver either, lacking the punch and wit of those in the tv series.

In summary a bland effort and it really struggled with the extended format, a few smiles along the way but I got more laughs out of the new Minions film trailer in the pre-show.

The Gray Man (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo 2022)

When Philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old -Hegel gets some things right, like this verdict on supposedly satirical addition to the Assassin genre, in fact a genre old before its time. Gray, or grey, it begs to be interred. In fact, there may even be a sequel. I watched it on someone else's Netflix account, so no apologies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by diddyboponTOP

Nobody.... It's a great John wick type action film.... Right down to his daughters cat being stolen setting his rampage off instead of his Dog lol.

---

The "Bus scene".
Did NOT know who they were fucking with! :dead:

TOP GUN - Maverick

Cyrano (Joe Wright, 2021)

Revising Rostand's tour de force of lyrical drama into a musical has been a mistake, and nothing can rescue this attempt from the dustbin. The acting throughout is dire, so let's not ransack the dictionary to find an even more negative word to describe the 'singing'.

Non, merci!

The Accountant

Thor Love & Thunder. it was OK if you could turn your brain off (I could not) there were some attempts at humor that made me smirk, the strong female roles were nice I guess, Christian Bale was wasted in this but he is awesome and managed to be a compelling villain. 6/10

The Pale Blue Eye (Scott Cooper, 2022)

A collection of English/British actors assembles in the military academy at West Point, part of an odd detective drama that has Edgar Allan Poe as a character -yes, he did a spell in Westpoint- and tries to use some of the techniques in Poe's fiction to weave a tale within a tale. The result is not quite excruciating boredom, but flipping heck. I admit I was probably asleep for the last twenty minutes, and it made no difference to me or the film.

Viewed on a friend's Netflix account, so I can say I didn't pay for it.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, 2022)

Is Benoit Blanc going to become the detective version of Mission:Impossible? The cameos in the film suggest well-known people want to be part of the franchise, presumably in case we forget who they are. We may be reaching a point where it is best to forget Benoit Blanc is an English actor pretending to be a gay Southern Gentleman, though I understand Daniel Craig is now a US Citizen.

The film is as entertaining as the original Knives Out, which was not original, but had some spectacularly fizzy acting, and this one does too, though overall the roster is less good, with weak performances from Kate Hudson and two other women I had never heard of. Probably the best moment is provided by Serena Williams, but hey, that's showbusiness.

The last movie I watched was 'Huldufólk 102'. A documentary about the hidden people of Iceland. You can easily find and watch it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808308/?ref_=ttls_li_tt

China Girl by Abel Ferrara...a great, gritty throwback movie like a mobster Romeo & Juliet. You can watch for free on Tubi

Anne with an E (Pelican Ballet, 2017-2019)

I am putting this in movies but it could be a tv series, as I watched it on a friend's Netflix account, or rather, we watched it together. The series is derived from the series of novels, Anne of Green Gables, one of the (few) classics of Canadian literature

A coming-of-age series that is focused on a strong-willed but attractive character called Anne who, orphaned at an early age and miserable in care homes, finds love on a farm in Prince Edward Island. The acting, by the Irish-born Amybeth McNulty, and Geraldine James, is what carries this through, though by series 3 it was struggling to maintain an interest, and some of the Canadian actors are, well, equipped with shall we say, 'basic skills'. It was enjoyable at times, but not something to stretch the imagination, though it might justify a trip to PEI if you are in Canada, though I suspect as part of a Coast-to-Coast adventure. I give this 7/10 for enjoyment.

Anne with an E - Wikipedia

Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu, 2019)

The Warden of a US prison supervises executions, which eventually begins to undermine her self-confidence. An understated film with fine performances from Alfre Woodward and Wendell Pierce, but not surprises.

Cocaine Bear! Loved it!

Proxima (Alice Winocour, 2019)

This film (aired on Film 4 last night) about a French astronaut and her daughter in advance of mum going to the International Space Station, is a sensitive chamber work that loses its way at the end with a scene so preposterous it almost destroys the film. The credits celebrate women who have gone to space who also had children at the time, and that's about it. Matt Dillon sleepwalks through a role of the 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt' astronaut, but the child does a great job.

Mr Jones (Agnieszka Holland, 2019)

Welshman Gareth Jones once worked for ex-PM David Lloyd-Jones in the 1930s and was one of the first people to report on the famine in the Ukraine (the other was English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge whose reports in the Manchester Guardian were anonymous at the time). The true story claims New York Times journalist Walter Duranty gave some help to Jones when he was in Moscow but denied Jones stories about the famine were true. Though thrown out of the country, Jones made his way to Mongolia where it is alleged he was abducted and murdered by the KGB. The film is at times quite disturbing, with a fine performance from James Norton, whose reputation has only been rising since his roles in Happy Valley, War and Peace, and a drama revolving around Russian oligarchs called McMafia, also based in part on a true story. Not sure why George Orwell makes an appearance while writing Animal Farm which happened around 10 years after the events in the film. Nevertheless, recommended.

next month going to see the whale :)

'Hellbender' from 2021. A fine horror movie.

I watched it too and fully agree about the ludicrous antics in that scene. In mitigation it is a film about space which is not sci-fi, mostly about European space efforts and showing real world facilities for a change. It did add value but was really a character study, not every film about space requires a battle or an accident to be entertaining...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

Proxima (Alice Winocour, 2019)

This film (aired on Film 4 last night) about a French astronaut and her daughter in advance of mum going to the International Space Station, is a sensitive chamber work that loses its way at the end with a scene so preposterous it almost destroys the film. The credits celebrate women who have gone to space who also had children at the time, and that's about it. Matt Dillon sleepwalks through a role of the 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt' astronaut, but the child does a great job.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rodinuk

I watched it too and fully agree about the ludicrous antics in that scene. In mitigation it is a film about space which is not sci-fi, mostly about European space efforts and showing real world facilities for a change. It did add value but was really a character study, not every film about space requires a battle or an accident to be entertaining...

---

All fair points, with which I agree. I get the impression 'sci-fi' is a genre you like, so I would appreciate some recommendations of films mostly those I have probably not seen or heard of.

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola 1972)
The Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

I watched the first two Godfather films when they were screened on Channel 4 last week, though I have them on DVD and have seen them multiple times. They contain some of the finest moments in film, but also have flaws. The primary flaw in both is with the abysmal 'acting' of the two lead women, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. The women in the Godfather films are weak to the point of being almost irrelevant, while the moment in Sicily when Michael's first wife disrobes on their wedding night is gratuitous nudity, I doubt it would be done today.

In the second Godfather, the Senator from Nevada does play an important role in establishing links between the Mafia and elected members of Congress, but the scene in which he is discovered with a dead prostitute is completely unnecessary.

A few peccadilloes to make the point that Coppola achieved something special in both films which he never repeated, but which remain problematic at times. One could also question the historical basis of the early years, the absence of the links between the Italian gangs, and the Irish and Jewish gangs though Hyman Roth does provide some angle on this in II. There is no sense of how the Mafia captured the docks and transport as a key part of their 'business', and the Mafia was involved in drugs from an early stage in the 1920s contrary to the scepticism of Don Corleone.

But some of the visuals are superb, and the opening wedding scene of Godfather 1 must be as close to cinema perfection as one can get.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods

John Wick.
I enjoyed it... albeit there's a lot of bloodshed. But entertaining.
Kind of like a grittier version of James Bond, I guess.
I liked the female antagonist in the film played by Adrianne Palicki.

Attachment 1415358

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

All fair points, with which I agree. I get the impression 'sci-fi' is a genre you like, so I would appreciate some recommendations of films mostly those I have probably not seen or heard of.

---

Well I would recommend The Fifth Element but I would imagine you have seen it and perhaps rather strangely Farmageddon starring Shaun the Sheep which is packed with references.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rodinuk

Well I would recommend The Fifth Element but I would imagine you have seen it and perhaps rather strangely Farmageddon starring Shaun the Sheep which is packed with references.

---

Shaun the Sheep? Bah! But it does sound a hoot so I will track it down. Fifth Element is ok as an enjoyable essay in nonsense.

John Wick Chapter 4. Amazing movie!!

The Angel

A true story Netflix film of an Egyptian espionage spy working for Mossad in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War.

Moonfall (Roland Emmerich, 2022)

Could be called Moonfail. Roland Emmerich, famous for disaster movies, has made a disaster. You may never look at the Moon the same way again, though you would be a fool -or a fall- to take this seriously, not least when it becomes another version of The Swarm...(that's the 1978 film).

Those of you interested in the real science might like this, but spoiler alert! If such rubbish can be spoiled.
Could the moon ever be pushed from orbit, like in 'Moonfall'? | Live Science

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

A divorced man takes his 11 year-old daughter on holiday to a resort in Turkey. They swim, go for dinner, chat, go on a tour, play pool, and so on. A film which observes its characters, who through a cam corder record and observe each other (the film is set in the 1990s). The key to the film is that all the small incidents accumulate so that by the film's end, the tenderness of belonging, and the sadness of separation are magnified. So the more I think of it, the better this film is. The Scottish woman who made it, Charlotte Wells, has been mostly a producer - the photography is outstanding and the script is fine- so this is her first feature, and I hope, not her last. I rate this 8/10.

The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2019)

Somewhere in this conceited drivel there are some intriguing ideas. Unfortunately, one of the key characters has no credibility as a lover, art critic or actor, whereas Mick Jagger in his brief appearances is splendid, and Donald Sutherland is, well, Donald Sutherland as he has been playing himself for the last 30 years (167 films and yet more I dare say). Elizabeth Debicki is the spindly love-interest, or sex-interest, so in descending order, we have
Donald Sutherland 6'4"
Claes Bang, 6'4"
Elizabeth Debicki 6'2"
Mick Jagger 5'10" so he looks like a dwarf. Funny old world, innit?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2019)

Somewhere in this conceited drivel there are some intriguing ideas. Unfortunately, one of the key characters has no credibility as a lover, art critic or actor, whereas Mick Jagger in his brief appearances is splendid, and Donald Sutherland is, well, Donald Sutherland as he has been playing himself for the last 30 years (167 films and yet more I dare say). Elizabeth Debicki is the spindly love-interest, or sex-interest, so in descending order, we have
Donald Sutherland 6'4"
Claes Bang, 6'4"
Elizabeth Debicki 6'2"
Mick Jagger 5'10" so he looks like a dwarf. Funny old world, innit?

---

This is based on the book by Charles Willeford I assume. I stopped reading it about 70 pages in. From your review, I sense the movie was true to the source material.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by broncofan

This is based on the book by Charles Willeford I assume. I stopped reading it about 70 pages in. From your review, I sense the movie was true to the source material.

---

I don't know the book. The film opens with a clever exposition of the 'Power of the Critic' in which the critic shows a painting to a group of American women, most of who we assume buy art. He gives them a moving backstory to the painting and gets a large show of hands when he asks if they would buy it, before flipping the presentation to explain the painting is worthless, that he made up the painting and the story and so on. It is similar to the acidly-written book The Painted Word, in which Tom Wolfe takes art critics to the cleaners, explaining how a small group in the US made the reputations of Abstract Expressionists and with it a while heap of money while the value (in aesthetic terms) of the art itself receded behind the words of the critics. Throw in a reclusive artist who along with his work hasn't been seen for 50 years, and you have the tempting possibility that he has been working and that the painting(s) will be worth a lot of money.

This initiates a deal between the collector (Jagger) and the critic (Bang) to tempt the artist (Sutherland) out of hiding so the collector can reap the financial reward and the critics his reputation. Throw in a tall, thin blonde and a murder, completely pointless in my view, and you have this mess even if the last few minutes flip the story again.
The director has not used the camera to explore the trope -'I paint what I see not what is there' (Turner), or explore price and value though the Jagger character says something along these lines near the end. So it begins well but ends poorly, and is not helped by Claes Bang who doesn't fit, and the other unnecessary scene in which he and Debicki have sex, merely visual titillation if you want to see her breasts, and his hairy torso.

On that basis, the book might be better than the film.

Tár (Todd Field, 2022)

When the film opens, Lydia Tár is at the summit of her career as a conductor. A pupil of Leonard Bernstein, Gay, in a marriage with the lead violin of the Berlin orchestra she is in charge of, a book about her life coming out, and a concert of Mahler's 5th Symphony which will be recorded and be the last of their recordings of the Mahler Symphony cycle (though it is the least interesting of Mahler's symphonies and luckily we don't hear much of it, or indeed any other music). By the end of the film, Lydia Tár has been sacked, her marriage has collapsed, and she is lucky to get a job conducting an orchestra in Manila for a Cosplay concert (something to do with a video game I know nothing of).

Unfortunately, the film cannot decide if it is about cancel culture, or the perils of power used for selfish ends. The downfall is occasioned by the suicide of a young musician whom Tár has told many people not to hire because of the woman's erratic behaviour though it is alleged they had an affair which Tár broke off, thus causing a #metoo reaction amongst Tár's critics. Someone also uses a camera phone to record a talk on conducting she gives at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, edited to make it look like she is ridiculing or even bullying a young student, albeit one who is so short of a few useful crotchets he might be better off flipping burgers. I wrote down one of his precious lines when he responds to Tár's question about JS Bach-

"Honestly, as a BIPOC, pangender person, I would say Bach's misogynistic life makes it kind of impossible for me to take his music seriously".

There have been so many rave reviews of this film, and there are a few interesting analyses on YouTube, but though I am sure she had some tuition in preparation for the role, it is evident Cate Blanchett can't conduct, while the climactic scene in the Berlin Philharmonie is ludicrous and undermines any serious intent the film might have. Unfortunately, there is a pupil of Leonard Bernstein who conducts and is gay, namely Marin Alsop, and I am sure Todd Field was aware of this. So all in all, a disappointing film which fails to address the subjects of power or cancel culture, as ultimately, I really didn't care about Lydia, and there are no significant other characters in the film to give it the depth that it needs.