Films you've watched recently

[durbster]

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Watching this on a flight last year and remember it being good so we stuck it on for the family at the weekend. It's one of the best recent examples of this type of film I reckon. Top cast who are very funny, particularly in the first half.

The King (Netflix)
I'm sure I'd heard this was good so we stuck it on a couple of nights ago. The wife was asleep after about half an hour and I think I lasted another hour before giving up and going to bed. I've already forgotten what happened so I'm not sure I'll bother with the rest.

Eaten by Lions
Tiny budget British film about a kid who goes to find his dad. I enjoyed it despite it going off on a weird tangent in the middle. It has a lad called Jack Carroll in it who did stand-up on Britain's Got Talent (mainly about his cerebral palsy), and he grabs most of the laughs.

The Grinch (the new one)
Meh.

[Big Kev]

Just watching Avengers Endgame.
Jeez it's sloooooooow. An hour in and literally nothing has happened except in the first 3 mins a family vanished with no explanation and the archer guy who was there hasn't been seen in the film since. The first hour could have been cut out and it would have made no difference to the film at all.

I'm glad this series has ended. They now have way too many characters who are only in the film for 4-5 mins a piece making the story too diluted.

Gave up with an hour still to go. What a yawnfest. I fast forwarded the last hour and it looked like the obligatory 20 minute CGI fight and then I think the family who disappeared were back. I'm none the wiser but it doesn't matter! It shouldn't take 3hrs to explain why they vanished at the beginning!

[durbster]

We had to watch Endgame over two nights. I thought they did a good job to wrap up what has been an epic project, and I was glad they didn't just make it a constant CGI fight fest (isn't it odd how those are often the most tedious parts of these films).

While I'm here, I'd recommend Little Monsters.

I'm a sucker for pretty much any zombie film but this one is exceptional, right up there with the likes of Shaun of the Dead. It's set in Australia (although I'm not convinced it was filmed there) and is about a primary school trip that gets overrun by zombies.

I thought it was very funny. Thankfully, the kids aren't as annoying as kids usually are in films, and they even get a few laughs. Lupita Nyong'o is absolutely incredibly charismatic and I found out afterwards she's an oscar winner.

Well worth a watch.

Also watched John Wick 3 last night. I was really surprised there was no fighting in it at all and they instead made it into a romantic comedy about John retiring and running a B&B outside of Margate.

Just kidding, of course it's just a stream of of amusing and daft violence that is just about strung together by some kind of plot.

[Big Kev]

By the way, not a film and I'm not sure if the ARSE's get it on their BBC feed but I highly recommend a BBC show called The Repair Shop. It's fricking amazing. People bring in an item/heirloom with a bit of a sob story attached and they restore it. Some of them are utterly amazing transformations.

[richo]

Watched The Gentlemen last night and it wasn't too bad at all , it's no Lock Stock or Snatch but very funny all the same .

If your not a fan on the C word best avoid this one then as it's used extremely liberally although most of the time it made me chuckle but I'm easily amused.

[smithcorp]

Watched Jo Jo Rabbit last night. Remarkable film, highly recommend.

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[DarrenM]

1917

Saw this last night and really enjoyed it. It's a small story but the way it's presented as one long take following 2 soldiers kept me engrossed the whole time.

[KNAPPO]

Finally saw Ford vs Ferrari last night.

10/10 will watch again.

[smithcorp]

Watched Togo (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5116302/) with the family. Great film, 'based on a true story' adventure yarn about a husky. Starring Willem Dafoe. Really very well done, all the kids loved it and plenty for adults.

[NeilPearson]

Grave of the Fireflys.

So so so Depressing, but so so so good

[durbster]

Hmm, never heard of it. Will seek it out

We watched The Endless last night. Mrs durbs said it was a bit boring but OK, while I thought it was good.

It's quite unusual and best to go in knowing nothing about it as we did, I think. It takes turns I was not expecting. It requires a bit of effort on your part; certainly not a casual film you'd throw on to get you through a hangover.

[Sarsippius]

Train to Busan, a Korean zombie movie from a few years ago, was pretty good. I guess it shouldn't be surprising but the production quality was high, what you would expect out of hollywood.

[durbster]

I thought Train to Busan was superb.

[wabbit]

Jo Jo Rabbit and Parasite I think are worth watching.

[DarrenM]

Train to Busan, a Korean zombie movie from a few years ago, was pretty good. I guess it shouldn't be surprising but the production quality was high, what you would expect out of hollywood.

On a related note, check out Kingdom on netflix if you haven't already. It's a zombie series set in feudal Korea. High quality and season 2 is due next week. It defaulted to dubbed voices which I didn't think were very good so I watched with original audio and subtitles.

[Sarsippius]

Yeah I think I put that on my watch list but it's one of many things I haven't had time to watch yet

[KNAPPO]

Watched UPPITY: The Willy T. Ribbs Story last night.

Bloody good

[norbs]

Watched UPPITY: The Willy T. Ribbs Story last night.

Bloody good

I liked it to. Talk about getting a hard time.

[Dr. Pain]

Spitfire. It's on Netflix and it's wonderful!

[smithcorp]

Thanks Doc! Also on Netflix and watched last night - The Wolf's Call. A stylish French submarine drama. Bit silly in some parts but otherwise excellent. Recommended. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7458762/

[durbster]

Extraction
A Netflix thing. The wife chose this because Chris Hemsworth but it's pretty good. There's a bit of Twitter rage about aspects of it which is fair enough but that aside, it's a well made action film.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Felt like I had to watch it because I've seen the others but man, has a simple story ever been stretched so far?

I don't know how well it went down with proper Star Wars fans but as somebody fairly indifferent to the world, I didn't think it was good at all. I just don't think it was made very well.

A lot of it is totally illogical, danger is set up and then completely dismissed and it just jumps from one thing to another with no suspense at all. There's a bit where Rey slips when climbing. She's a fingernail away from certain death but there's not even a shot of her reaction, it just moves on to the next thing.

Our boy loved The Force Awakens and watched it over and over. He saw The Last Jedi once and never mentioned it again, and after the first 40 minutes of The Risk of Skywalker he was bored and wanted to switch it off. Considering he's a 9yo boy and therefore I'd say inside the target demographic, that says a lot.

Still, I guess some people made a squillion dollars out of it so they don't care.

[Big Kev]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
I saw this too having missed it in the cinema.

I thought it was alright actually. Obviously I've seen the whole lot and wanted to round off the story. I think they had a bit of a job making some of the story fit from the previous one. It was a bad idea to change directors for the trilogy because you get a disconnect in the ideas of the stories. One director has an idea for the story and guides it one way then someone else skews it and then bringing JJ back again he obviously wanted to steer it back to his idea again and that spoils the flow a little bit.

I thought the set piece action scenes were pretty good but I've never liked the force projection stuff where you're in one place and suddenly in another and then they're not really there and yet the light sabres are clashing. That didn't make much sense to me. That dagger marking a location would only work if you stood in precisely the right place but that's just one of many plot holes!! (how can you hold a big departing transporter ship but you can't use the force to flick a jetpacked storm trooper in to a mountainside...). I didn't think they needed to write in the death of Carrie Fisher and the interracial lesbian kiss in the celebrations seemed very unnecessarily PC forced. But overall I thought it was ok, it must be cos I've watched it 6 times in the last 2 weeks!

Why does C3PO have a different voice? Also I think good as Daisy Ridley is, some of her lines are delivered in a very wooden way. Especially the bit where the falcon comes back on fire. There's no emotion in what she's saying (incidentally the same thing bugs me about TFA when she says that one's garbage, the garbage will do. They've just sprinted for 200m and she delivers it without being out of breath. Lack of attention to detail!!!). And I've always thought Domnal Gleeson is miscast as he isn't....menacing.

Alita: Battle Angel
mmm..... Lost interest after about 30 mins. CGI was amazingly detailed but that was about it really for me. Near the beginning she was shocked to see a wanted poster for a serial killer who had done in 6 women. She then proceeded to kill people left, right and centre for the next 90 minutes.

[Big Kev]

[DarrenM]

Speaking of stretching a simple story too far, I decided to binge watch the Borne movies. There's 5 of them now. I hadn't seen the most recent and I remember enjoying the original 3 when they were new and the 4th one which is about a different agent wasn't bad either, so I thought I'd watch them all through on Stan.

Turns out that was a bad idea. Although I think each one is a good movie in its own right, they're all basically the same story. It sort of worked for the original trilogy as there was enough of a thread to tie them together. But in the 4th movie they ruin the satisfying ending of the 3rd one for what I assume was half arsed attempt to set up another sequel (would have been a better movie without its constant references to Borne). The 5th movie is just a pointless variant of the same story.

My conclusion is two thumbs up for the original trilogy and ignore the other 2 unless you haven't watch the original trilogy for a while.



I've also enjoyed sets of remakes lately. I'd be interest to know of any similar sets of movies where the remakes are in different settings.

Yojimbo (1961) A wandering ronin encounters a village where 2 rival gangs are fighting for control. Two thumbs up.
Fist Full of Dollars (1964) Shameless spaghetti western ripoff staring Clint Eastwood. Two thumbs up.
Last Man Standing (1996) Passable retelling set in the prohibition era starring Bruce Willis as Bruce Willis. One thumb up.

Seven Samurai (1954) A village recruits a samurai to defend against bandits. He puts together a band of seven and they duke it out. Three thumbs up.
Magnificent Seven (1960) All star cast western retelling. 2 thumbs up.
Magnificent Seven (2016) Decent remake. One.5 thumbs up.

[NeilPearson]

Speaking of stretching a simple story too far, I decided to binge watch the Borne movies. There's 5 of them now. I hadn't seen the most recent and I remember enjoying the original 3 when they were new and the 4th one which is about a different agent wasn't bad either, so I thought I'd watch them all through on Stan.

Turns out that was a bad idea. Although I think each one is a good movie in its own right, they're all basically the same story. It sort of worked for the original trilogy as there was enough of a thread to tie them together. But in the 4th movie they ruin the satisfying ending of the 3rd one for what I assume was half arsed attempt to set up another sequel (would have been a better movie without its constant references to Borne). The 5th movie is just a pointless variant of the same story.

My conclusion is two thumbs up for the original trilogy and ignore the other 2 unless you haven't watch the original trilogy for a while.

Its funny because the the ending of the

[SPOILER]

first book he finds out who he is. then in book two his mrs gets attacked he forgets again for some reason. I stopped reading after that.