I Just Watched (Films)

[Animalmother]

Dolph Lundgren would have been a much better choice for the role. Plus replace James Belushi with anyone else.

[Animalmother]

The 70's was off the fucking rails

[Raid]

I've never seen The French Connection, but noticed it's on Disney Plus the other night. Is it worth a watch in 2021?

[Animalmother]

I remember it being good and very well made but also a little bit on the slow side. In fairness I haven't seen it is a very long time.

[Achtung Englander]

I've never seen The French Connection, but noticed it's on Disney Plus the other night. Is it worth a watch in 2021?

OMG what - its one of my all time favourites. I see it every year. Its close to a masterpiece in the crime movie genre. All of it is based on a real life case and the real Popeye is playing his boss in the film. Having read the making of this film there is so much depth to it. Like the fact the casting director got the wrong actor to play Alain Charnier but Fernando Rey was so good, Friedkin kept him and that the first scene of the film was re-filmed and were the last scenes filmed after Gene Hackman finally got his "character" after months of playing him. Hackman himself hated the character and the real Jimmy Doyle didn't rate him...until that is Hackman only won a fucking Oscar for the role !

The direction, cinematography and music is some of the best for the decade. Please see it !

[Achtung Englander]

The Dig (Netflix)

Meh. Started really well with a simple plot and some great character acting than there was a sub-plot about a fatal disease than there was a sub-plot about closest homosexuality than there was a sub-plot about a secret love affair. Wtf. The second half was a complete drag. Some nice cinematography and it was interesting to learn about the discover of the Sutton Hoe treasure but all the bolted on sub-plots was a wholly unnecessary distraction. Wasted potential. The music was shite.
5/10

[Rusty]

Palm Springs - Amazon Prime

A time travel / groundhog day thing. I liked it a lot. The 2 lead characters where great together.

Hard to talk about without giving any plot away

[Animalmother]

Love & Monsters
Very enjoyable horror comedy with giant mutant insects and other creepy crawlies roaming the world. Considering the relatively small budget the effects and creature design are great. Awesome dog as well

[Raid]

The Dark Knight Rises

I hadn't seen this film since it was in the cinema; at the time I thought it was a poor follow up to what remains one of the best superhero films and I wanted to see if 9 years had changed my mind. Sadly it hasn't. This is such a messy, meandering film for the most part. A lot of the build-up just feels a bit unnecessary, and while I think the last half hour is excellent, the bloated runtime doesn't do it any favours. It could have been an hour shorter and been a better film for it.

I think it has the same problem as Iron Man 3; it's a good film, but the audience is expecting a significant part of the runtime to be devoted to the hero in the title, and it doesn't deliver on that. Batman is in this for all of about 20 minutes of the 164 minute runtime, and even then he's usually having a punch-up with a villain that by the end is side-lined.

It's not a bad film, I just feel that it could have been improved in the edit.

[Animalmother]

The Dark Knight Rises
Pretty much identical to what Raid said. Haven't seen it since cinema release and was curious if I still disliked it. Better than I remember but still a mess of a film, too long and full of needless fluff. Bane's voice has been cleaned up and you can actually understand what he's saying now, which wasn't the case in the cinema version. He still sounds fucking ridiculous and I was giggling away whenever he was on screen I could be imaging it but there's a general air of couldn't give a shit from several of the cast including Bale and Gary Oldman, I know they're both supposed to be worn out and dejected but I just think they were going through the routine of another Batman film.
Not a bad film just not a very good or memorable one either.

[Raid]

I did notice the Bane voice was improved over what I remembered from the cinematic release. I had such trouble making out what he was saying when I saw it originally, I did wonder whether I'd missed something. I don't know if they've actually cleaned the audio up or whether it was the stupidly high volume that cinemas use that was the problem.

It was a truly bizarre choice for him to sound like he did. I can understand if they didn't want him to sound like a generic, gravelly-voiced thug, but "muffled children's entertainer" isn't what I would have chosen instead.

[Animalmother]

"Seriously?..."

[Raid]

Brilliant. The guy sounds so alike they probably didn't need to pay Tom Hardy money to play a character that is barely recognisable as Tom Hardy.

[Raid]

Sonic the Hedgehog

This is better than Super Mario Bros. Sega won. There, review done.

Ok, ok. This isn't terrible. It's a pretty formulaic kid's film that serves as a reminder that a) Sonic the Hedgehog shouldn't speak (although Ben Schwartz's voice work is perfectly decent), and b) Jim Carrey is willing to do pretty much anything in front of a camera. He steals every scene in this, which perhaps isn't hard when the only other significant person on set was James Marsden playing an extremely average, let's face it, boring character, but Carrey is genuinely excellent.

As with every mascot videogame or film based thereon, this just had no reason to be set in the real world. All that does is force people to come up with crap excuses as to why there are real people alongside CGI characters. In this case it turns out Sonic travels through portals created by throwing the series' iconic gold rings and wishing, and his surrogate mother was a giant owl who gets killed by a group of angry tribal echidnas because Sonic Gotta Go fast. Stop trying to justify this shit with silly backstories that don't add anything, the kids don't care.

It gets a few fun references in, such as the local town conspiracy theorist who keeps seeing Sonic and draws him as the infamous "Sanic" meme, but I'm not sure I share the enthusiasm that this seemed to garner after it actually released. Watch it if you want to see Jim Carrey playing Jim Carrey, and fart jokes. I've seen an episode of Sonic Boom, it's better written and probably makes more sense, go watch that if you're desperate to see a 16-bit mascot that has had exactly one good game in twenty years on a TV.

[elgaucho]

Love & Monsters
Very enjoyable horror comedy with giant mutant insects and other creepy crawlies roaming the world. Considering the relatively small budget the effects and creature design are great. Awesome dog as well

Haha nice one!

I watched this in a moment of craziness expecting it to be abysmal some time ago, but it was actually really quite fun!