The Last Film watched (CONTAINS STAR WARS SPOILERS!!)

First topic message reminder :

Quite enjoyed rec 3 although it's not really much to do with the first 2 films.

If it had been a standalone film, I think the critical response would have been better. For me it was really entertaining.

Agree, it was extremely childish. It is either this or having the same arguments about Mayweather I have been having for the last five years. No wonder having childish pops at you won is it.

Very true Rowley, I admire the fact you was able to drag yourself away from it just in case somebody/anybody posted something that hasn't been said before ;-)

Dunno if you'd class it as a film but watched John Richardson's Nidiot last night (The missus loves him,) I thought it was pretty good, not as funny as I'd hoped but still worth a watch.

I watched Whiplash at the beginning of the week. 

Absolutely superb film. JK Simmons was brilliant, and Miles Teller wasn't far behind. 

Even for people who might not be the biggest fans of jazz, the film's storyline absorbs you. This film is about much more than just watching some kid drumming.

Fury. Good watch, a bit gory when it comes to the battle scenes. The endings a bit far fetched.
Lucy. Decent start but trails off and again, the ending is disappointing.

Watched The Grand Budapest Hotel.

It is actually a fantastic watch. Ralph Fiennes is brilliant and his delivery is impeccable. I thought it brought some much needed credit to Brody and Dafoe who have made some utter cack films in recent memory. The will reading scene is brilliant and the prison escape fight is funny too.

9/10

American Sniper. An excellent film; beautifully acted by Bradley Cooper and very well directed by ol' Clint. Deservedly up for awards. It's been a while since I've seen the entire audience silent at the end of the film. Loved it.

9.5/10

Watched a few films recently. Edge of tomorrow, really enjoyed this film. Thought Tom Cruise was good as the lead, even if his wonky smile is annoying.

Fury - superb film right up until the end when it becomes a typical macho American war film.

Man of steel - seen it a few times and it's still a film I enjoy. It's a darker side of superman that it seems people liked the idea of, but once they saw it on the big screen they didn't like it.

John Carter - I know this film gets some stick, but I enjoy it. Taylor Kitsch does well as the lead role, the scene were he arrives on Mars and is trying to walk always makes me laugh.

John Wick - Keanu Reeves (stay with me!!!!) plays a retired assassin who is mourning the death of his wife when the son of his former employer unwittingly steals his car and kills his dog (I know, kids these days huh?). Reeves comes out of retirement to seek revenge.....lots of people die!

Never been a fan of Reeves and anything decent he's done (basically the first Matrix film) has had the benefit of a decent supporting cast. However, this isn't bad at all. If you enjoyed stuff like "Taken" and "The Equalizer" then this is right up your street. Plenty of messy fighting and killing with a predictable plot but thoroughly enjoyable if you go in with little expectation of having a life altering cinematic experience and want to put your brain on hold for 100 minutes or so.

Mods - can you please erase my memory as well.  Although I'd prefer if you leave my w@nk bank unmolested.

Watched quite a few last weekend, my reviews will be reflective of the amount of my efforts they warrant.

Dumb and Dumber 2, Lucy, Kill The Messenger, The Gambler

All awful.

Well done for cleaning this up....I've had as much of Didsbury rugby teams as I can take..lately !!

Dumb and Dumber 2 ?? No thanks !!

Turned the first one off after 15 mins..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Well done for cleaning this up....I've had as much of Didsbury rugby teams as I can take..lately !!

Dumb and Dumber 2 ?? No thanks !!

Turned the first one off after 15 mins..

Your old lady is clearly made of sterner stuff then!

Anyway...Dumb and Dumber...someone at work was waxing idiotic about how fantastic the original was and I said that whilst I'm sure I'd watched it I was struggling to recall it being any good. Downloaded it and watched it again recently. Much like the TRUSSMEISTER, I turned it off after fifteen minutes having not cracked a smile. However, unlike TRUSSY, I didn't then go on to watch "Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Peter North's Revenge" instead

American Sniper was good, but I didn't think it needed to be on for that long. Bradley Cooper impressed me for the first time ever.

I had a look at "A simple plan" on bbc iplayer yesterday. Awesome film. Begs the question of if your really happy living a normal life.

I don't know what normal is Mate..This is my first go at this s**t....and last hopefully.

Certainly easier to change your life in the movies..

Will give it a watch...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I don't know what normal is Mate..This is my first go at this s**t....and last hopefully.

Certainly easier to change your life in the movies..

Will give it a watch...

I don't mean it in that way. It's about 3 guys who find 4 million dollars while in the woods and have to decide what to do with it lol. The question is would you try to improve an average life into a luxurious life even not knowing who's money that is.

Inbetweeners 2.

Good to see the lads all lied through their teeth when they said only came back because the script was excellent etc

Average.

You bet I would Nadeem..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:You bet I would Nadeem..

Watch the film truss. I'm pretty sure your answer will change then.

No he wouldn't, TRUSS hates his life. His son beats him on the X-Box, his wife is service the local rugby team and no-one at work respects him or remembers anything about the 1980's so he's a real fish out of water wherever he goes.

Even on here, I'm the only one who has anything approaching respect for him and you can see how well THAT'S going can't you?

Truss would try improve his average life if he found a half empty bag of Skittles in the car

You can't say fairer than that..

A Simple Plan was fantastic.

It was a Sam Raimi pre Spiderman from memory.

Remember watching it at the cinema - really low key film but really well scripted.

Get on up. A biography of James Brown. I more a celebration of his life than a hard hitting warts and all affair, but the music and live shows are brilliantly done and the guy playing Brown is extraordinary, worth a watch.

Adam D wrote:A Simple Plan was fantastic.

It was a Sam Raimi pre Spiderman from memory.

Remember watching it at the cinema - really low key film but really well scripted.

Absolutely. Saw this again in the week. An engrossing spiral of disaster.

Also watched yesterday a recording of The Flight of The Phoenix, the original from the mid '60s. Captivating. Brilliant performances from an all star cast. Hardy Kruger probably the best of the lot but wonderful contributions as well from the largely forgotten Ian Bannen and Ronald Fraser. Can you back me up here, Jeff?

I loved that film as a child. Never saw the remake.

Just finished Taken 3, was decent enough.

RinoGattuso wrote:Just finished Taken 3, was decent enough.

Check out the fourth one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMg-hUNKPKs

guildfordbat wrote:

Adam D wrote:A Simple Plan was fantastic.

It was a Sam Raimi pre Spiderman from memory.

Remember watching it at the cinema - really low key film but really well scripted.

Absolutely. Saw this again in the week. An engrossing spiral of disaster.

Also watched yesterday a recording of The Flight of The Phoenix, the original from the mid '60s. Captivating. Brilliant performances from an all star cast. Hardy Kruger probably the best of the lot but wonderful contributions as well from the largely forgotten Ian Bannen and Ronald Fraser. Can you back me up here, Jeff?

Is that where a plane crashes in the desert and a mismatched bunch have to resolve their issues to survive? If so, I saw the remake with Denis Quade(?) and it was OK but no more than that.

Watched "Fury" the other day...basically "Saving Private Ryan" without the schmaltz and superfluous "getting to know all about the characters" bullsh!t.

Starting to watch "We Still Kill the Old Way" - Old East End villain comes back home to avenge the death of his brother at the hands of a local gang. Probably be bollox but anything where these young kids who think they're gangbangers get the sh!t kicked out of them is alright by me. Only about a 3rd of the way through but it's not a patch on "Harry Brown" (and that wasn't great either)

Watched American Sniper yesterday, was pretty good. Some tense moments, 7/10 altogether for me.

There seems to be a lot of divided opinion on this guy (Chris Kyle) in America, mostly based on whether you are a liberal or conservative. He shot a woman and a child in the film, however there's no mention of the child in his book. Doesn't really match up to some of Clint Eastwood's previous directorial efforts, but a good watch all the same.

DAVE667 wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:

Adam D wrote:A Simple Plan was fantastic.

It was a Sam Raimi pre Spiderman from memory.

Remember watching it at the cinema - really low key film but really well scripted.

Absolutely. Saw this again in the week. An engrossing spiral of disaster.

Also watched yesterday a recording of The Flight of The Phoenix, the original from the mid '60s. Captivating. Brilliant performances from an all star cast. Hardy Kruger probably the best of the lot but wonderful contributions as well from the largely forgotten Ian Bannen and Ronald Fraser. Can you back me up here, Jeff?

Is that where a plane crashes in the desert and a mismatched bunch have to resolve their issues to survive? If so, I saw the remake with Denis Quade(?) and it was OK but no more than that.

....

Yes, that's the one although I haven't seen the remake. Going from the reviews I've read, the remake doesn't come anywhere close to matching the original which really is an excellent film.

guildfordbat wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:

Adam D wrote:A Simple Plan was fantastic.

It was a Sam Raimi pre Spiderman from memory.

Remember watching it at the cinema - really low key film but really well scripted.

Absolutely. Saw this again in the week. An engrossing spiral of disaster.

Also watched yesterday a recording of The Flight of The Phoenix, the original from the mid '60s. Captivating. Brilliant performances from an all star cast. Hardy Kruger probably the best of the lot but wonderful contributions as well from the largely forgotten Ian Bannen and Ronald Fraser. Can you back me up here, Jeff?

Is that where a plane crashes in the desert and a mismatched bunch have to resolve their issues to survive? If so, I saw the remake with Denis Quade(?) and it was OK but no more than that.

....

Yes, that's the one although I haven't seen the remake. Going from the reviews I've read, the remake doesn't come anywhere close to matching the original which really is an excellent film.

It's one of those films you watch thinking, "Why am I wasting my time? I know they plane isn't going to crash, mangling half of themnand leaving the other half to dine on their own innards before dying a truly horrible death!"

Watched 300: rise of an empire. Enjoyed it without it ever threatening to outdo the original.(quite similar to taken 2 in that sense, where it was very similar to the first film but didn't have that same originality.)

Also watched the first 20-30 minutes of The zero theorem, could not get into it whatsoever. Heard good things about it but just not my type of film.

Dracula Untold.

All a bit meh. An interesting-ish take on the Dracula story, with decent visuals (if a little CGI-thick at times). It's not terrible, and not long enough that you start getting bored, but it doesn't exactly set the pulse rating. Decent way to spend an hour and a half, but don't go out of your way to watch it.

300: Rise of an Empire was worth it for Eva Green. Always had a crush on her since Dreamers.

Finally got around to watching interstellar. It was... frustrating.

An exercise in overindulgence at times. At least 45 minutes too long certainly - nothing wrong with long films in general but this one just seemed to have too many ideas and directions at once, and never managed to be quite coherent. Felt rushed at times, and ponderous at others. To be perfectly honest I felt it would have benefited from somebody from time to time saying "no guys this is a stupid idea".

That's not to say it was all bad of course. You have to admire the film for its ambition if nothing else, and some bits were fantastic.

I am a big Chris Nolan fan, but it seems that he is trying to outdo himself on each film. The Dark Knight rises had just enough brilliance to overshadow the bad stuff, but interstellar... not so sure.

watched gone girl and, pretty predictable up until the end

Spoiler:

thought it was a good film up until that point, kind of ruined by the ending

The Saint wrote:300: Rise of an Empire was worth it for Eva Green. Always had a crush on her since Dreamers.

She is quite lovely

Eva Green - is she the "Dame" in Sin City 2....if so, what a beautiful body!

She is Dave, she is. 

Wonderful woman.

The Saint wrote:300: Rise of an Empire was worth it for Eva Green. Always had a crush on her since Dreamers.

Hands off, she's mine

I couldn't agree with you all more.... cept you dummy_half. I bet you've never even seen Dreamers!

I watched Fury last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it, though I echo what others have said above- the ending was a bit OTT. Entertaining though. 

A housemate and I are going through a phase of enjoying horror films. Not 'gore' horror because that quite frankly isn't scary. More chilling, atmospheric ones. Any recommendations?

bluestonevedder wrote:A housemate and I are going through a phase of enjoying horror films. Not 'gore' horror because that quite frankly isn't scary. More chilling, atmospheric ones. Any recommendations?

I will have a proper think and come back to you on some suggestions. The only thing that springs to mind is REC and REC 2 at the moment.

My Little Eye from the early 00s was good (a big brother type horror film).

I havent seen Audition but everyone raves about that one!

Sinister and the first insidious are good modern horrors.

Woman in black is alright.

First paranormal activity if you haven't seen any, Blair witch a classic.

The Fog (original) is quite creepy too.

"Audition" is cr@p...try watching the Japanese version of "The Eye" and "The Ring"

"Blair Witch" is garbage.

"The Woman in Black" is very good if you can get past asking what Harry Potter is doing there.

Also try watching "Switchblade Romance" and "Inside aka L'interior" The original version of "Let the Right One In" is good too.

bluestonevedder wrote: ...

A housemate and I are going through a phase of enjoying horror films. Not 'gore' horror because that quite frankly isn't scary. More chilling, atmospheric ones. Any recommendations?

A black and white classic from the early '60s is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Heavy on atmosphere and highly recommended.

Cheers guys, I'll add them all to the list! 

I've seen REC and thought it was pretty decent. I'll check out REC2. 

I thought the first half of Insidious was superb, but then went absolute crud for the second half. 

I've heard good things about Woman in Black. Though as Dave says, I'm not sure I'll be able to get over the fact that Potter's in it. We shall see. 

Keep them coming if you think of anymore!

Taken 3 - poor. Shameful end to what started out as a good franchise, though I don't think Besson wanted to continue, he'd have preferred to leave it at Taken.

The Haunting (1963 version) is pretty good. A bit dated now, but still a cracking haunted house story without ever being really jump out of your chair scary.