I Just Watched (Films)

[Hatredsheart]

My favourite character in the John Wick films has got to be the sommelier. He delivers his lines with such relish.

[Animalmother]

Venom was shit no doubt about it but it was a refreshing sort of shit compared to the steaming piles the Marvel movies have become.

John Wick films are just fun to watch. The first is a little ropey in places but the action is fantastic. It's goes even more bonkers in 2 and 3, oh to be able to watch them for the first time again.

[Rusty]

I've just sat through them again with my son so it's sort of like watching them again for the first time through his eyes

[Animalmother]

I've just sat through them again with my son so it's sort of like watching them again for the first time through his eyes

Such a cool dad

[Achtung Englander]

Da 5 Blood

er....er...er...not sure what to make of this. Spike Lee has meshed 2 film genres with some pretty shoddy editing. Apparently the plot of 4 veterans looking for lost gold and a fallen colleague had been making the rounds and no one wanted to make it. Lee's version juxtaposition Black Lives Matter politics into the plot to advance in plot for some reason...or another...not quite sure why. You could drop all the BLM politics and the film would be exactly the same. It is actually a mess. Plotlines are not expanded or explained and as I said the editing is perhaps one of the worst I have seen in a modern film. Events pop up with zero set up or process. It is filmed on digital and the feel of the film is more TV drama than an established movie. It is also far too long - just over 2.5 hours. You could easily trim an hour from this thing.
I did see it to the end but I would be hard pressed to recommend it.

5/10

[Animalmother]

I turned it off after about 40 mins because it just wasn't very good. I'll try and finish it at some point but it'll be a struggle.

[Achtung Englander]

don't know why this film got so much praise from critics. Not everything that has BLM pinned to it is automatically brilliant. Get a sense of proportion.

[Alan]

Tenet
Uhm.... the worst film I’ve seen since cats. The dialogue is 70% exposition and 30% call of duty level interactions, nobody ever speaks like a person. Its a mile wide and an inch deep. Like a whole lot of Nolan it’s “this would look cool, let’s make it sound intelligent and hope nobody has a fingernail to scratch the cheap veneer”. It’s so dumb, the century spanning plot boils down to the most James Bond ass lame badguy.

Save yourself the best part of three hours and just don’t. It’s not even that visually interesting which is usually what Nolan excels at.

[Strudel]

Conversely, I really enjoyed it. I don't think it was his best film, and the pacing (particularly of the first act) could do with a bit of space to breath and take in what's going on but I enjoyed it overall and the key set pieces were really well put together.

[Achtung Englander]

The ending on this one - ouch !

[Achtung Englander]

Re-watched The Godfather and The Godfather Part II - so sublime. 10/10

[Raid]

No Country for Old Men

I've intended to watch this film for 13 years; I kinda wish I hadn't bothered. The first half is pretty good, but then it just... stops. The last half an hour or so just feels like they accidentally tacked on a bunch of deleted scenes for no good reason. Hell, the last scene with the main villain in has him get into an entirely inconsequential car accident, after which he wraps his broken arm and walks off. There's no real conclusion, I was stunned when the end credits appeared as it still felt like they needed another 20 minutes to actually end the damn thing.

I really feel like I've missed something major with this.

[Animalmother]

Dark Man

What a bizarre clusterfuck of a film that somehow works! It's the most Sam Raimi thing ever to be Sam Raimi'ed. Liam Neeson as a action star seemed ridiculous back then (and it was, his acting is hilariously bad), now it's all he does. It's a silly film that doesn't try to take itself seriously and just goes for it. I'd say it's Robocop meets Evil Dead. It's on Netflix now with a sudden infux of other 90's action stuff.

[Raid]

Mission Impossible: Fallout

A week or two ago I mentioned how I don't get excited by James Bond films anymore because they're just relentless set pieces. Well last night I decided to watch the other spy franchise known for its relentless set pieces and really quite enjoyed it. Ho hum. Perhaps it's because I've seen the behind the scenes stuff that showed off how much of this was real and CGI was only used to improve the backgrounds; Tom Cruise really jumped out of a transport aircraft and did a real HALO jump with a camera crew. There are allegedly no stunt actors for Tom Cruise in this, and there's a shot used in the film where he actually breaks his ankle.

Anyway, it's a good action film regardless of whether the authenticity is important to you. It does of course still have the ridiculous, elaborate deceptions they pull off throughout this franchise, but for the most part they don't break the suspension of disbelief despite getting a little silly in places. I did realise about a third of the way into the film that I actually haven't seen the previous film in the series; I knew it was the one where Tom Cruise hangs on to the side of a plane as it takes off, and I don't know what it says about modern trailers that I thought I'd seen the rest of the film around it. There's plenty of referencing of the previous film's plot, but I never felt like I was missing much.

Tom Cruise was 55 when filming this, and though he doesn't look or act his age, it's getting to the point where he's just too old for this to be believable. Hell, he's only five years younger than Alec Baldwin who is clearly meant to be playing a much older character, and he has a fist fight with people twenty years younger in this. There are at least two more films in development. Clearly he's earnt enough veetons or quatloos or whatever it is Scientologists are after to artificially prolong his career, but at some point he's going to have to hand over the mantle to someone else before he kills himself.

[Achtung Englander]

Jojo Rabbit

Funny in places. I would have preferred it to either be funnier or grittier. The film does not do either very well so it is a kind of half breed.

6/10