GRcade

Spectre - 7/10

While it's no Skyfall, i still enjoyed it a lot more second time around.

Anomalisa (2015) - ****
I always enjoy these kinds of introspective films. At first, it seems your typical romantic drama focused on connectedness and isolation intended to endear the audience to its main character, Michael, but I found myself more critical of some of his predatory behaviour and destructive narcissism as it went on. Worth watching just for the beautiful stop motion animation.

Network (1976) - ****
I've been meaning to watch this for quite a while, and have been aware of the Howard Beale monologues that people like to point to as some kind of call to arms for even longer, which is hilariously ironic now that I see the full context of them within the film. Excellent satire and script, and I wasn't surprised to learn that Faye Dunaway won several best actress awards for it, as she stole the whole film.

This scene is just fantastic:

Mad Max: 6/10

Hmm. Was disappointed by this on rewatching it. I saw it last when I was a kid and it was really quite shocking. The hand, the dog, the wife...all those scenes that etched themselves in my mind as a youngster were just a bit tame to me as an adult. The story is meandering and often boring, the acting is wooden to say the least and the music is god. Awful. The car chases are still genuinely thrilling though, how they got away with some of it is beyond me.

Anon.

Eesh. I normally like to champion original, thought-provoking sci-fi but this was just dull. There are some nice ideas about the future (the plentiful vacant stares were a nice touch) but the actual murder whodunnit was unengaging before a misjudged final act. Fell asleep five minutes before the end.

4/10

more heat than light wrote:Anon.

Eesh. I normally like to champion original, thought-provoking sci-fi but this was just dull. There are some nice ideas about the future (the plentiful vacant stares were a nice touch) but the actual murder whodunnit was unengaging before a misjudged final act. Fell asleep five minutes before the end.

4/10

Every time I remember watching this film I experience a little flicker of rage.

4/10 is waaayy too generous.

All those pregnant pauses for graphical overlays

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:4/10 is waaayy too generous.

Nah. I'd always rather watch something like this where there has been actual effort to make something unique than something which has been designed to be mediocre. Sure it's failed to tell an interesting tale here, but there are admirable qualities to it, the visual style is interesting (if not a little 'low budget' in places). The setup is fine, and Clive Owen does his best to inject a little charisma into a one dimensional role.

Maybe I'm just a genre fan. I enjoyed Gattaca, the most notable of the director's previous work. Stuff like Source Code, Triangle or Cube, films which go out of their way to tell a story differently. That's what I look for in a movie, and even though this one mostly didn't work, I at least applaud the effort to do that.

Blue Velvet
Not sure what score I'd give it yet but I loved it... I think.

Laura Dern

Coco - 8/10

An enjoyable Pixar movie, though at times it was a little too similar to The Book of Life.

Somehow I've gone through life never having watched Mad Max until this evening.

Quite good.

But The Video Game >> Fury Road >>> Mad Max.

King Of New York 8/10



Laurence Fishburne is a nutter in this one of his early best performances

I saw King Of New York years ago, used to love Christopher Walken. Can't remember which character goes into the burger bar and adds "Mother strawberry floater" at the end of his order, but that is on my bucket list.

Watched Mad Max 2 the other night, the intro was superb, the film, ehh, not so much. It is heavily dated but the car chases were fantastic considering the limited tech.

I’m so glad Millar got to make Fury Road though. Does justice to what he wanted to put on film imo.

Fury Road > 2 > 3 (up to thunderdome) > 1 > 3 (post thunderdome)

OrangeRakoon wrote:Fury Road > 2 > 3 (up to thunderdome) > 1 > 3 (post thunderdome)

I'd agree with that.

Calvary (2014) - ***
The Hunt (2012) - *****

Both films are made by the performance and screen presence of their stars, Brendan Gleeson and Mads Mikkelsen respectively, but The Hunt was the one that struck more of a chord. Excellent film.

Spoilers for both:
That's two films in a row where the protagonist's dog is killed.

Solo - A Star Wars Story - 4/10

Spoiler free.

I loved Rogue One and really ejoyed The Last Jedi. But this... It's something odd.

Firstly it's not a Star Wars film, it has no magic at all. The use of music feels like Justice League use of the famous Batman score. It just makes me wish for another film.

The effect are good. Cast are all fine. The plot is ok but without peril or danger as you know the main guys can't die.

It's very vanilla. It's very very vanilla. There is one scene when someone goes off to rescue some people and this could have been a huge chance for action, or to see see rage or just something new. But it's filmed like a made for tv fight. Just meh.

The YouTube fan hate for SJW Star Wars and a pan sexual Lando isnt really justified. However the appeal to everyone approach really feels tacked on and obvious. Also Lando is really piss poor in this, he is just there.

There is one moment towards the very end, which is sequel baiting and meant to get everyone amazingly excited but..... It's just ah ok then.

That's when I knew the film had failed as if that scene had been in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi then all fans would have exploded of pure geeky joy.

It's a well made film, its a family movie, but my word it's forgettable. It's so vanilla it's almost painful. At least people loved or hated the prequels. At the end of the year this won't be on anyone's top 10.

If it were a band ... It would be The Feeling.

I would agree with everything but 4 seems harsh, its a 6 from me
Nothing I would say is bad about it, it is just bland, everything in it feels done before. If people doubted there was a case for too much Star Wars this one confirms it. Oh I would not say Lando was piss poor, what I would say is Lando was criminally underused.
Also in May we have had infinity war and Deadpool 2, and this is not even close to their level

Idiocracy - 6/10

Caught it on TV last night, it was supposedly made in 2006 yet i'd never heard of it before. Luke Wilson found himself in a future where everyone is dumb and he's the smartest guy in the world. It was pretty stupid stuff (literally), but it was entertaining enough for me to not change the channel.

Deadpool 2 > Deadpool