What was the last film you watched?

[Angela Chilling]

Emergency (2022)

I liked this film way more than I expected to because the premise of the film does seem a little daft at first. Two black college students return home to find a white girl unconscious on the floor in their house. Their Latino flatmate has no idea how she got there because he was wearing headphones and engrossed in a computer game. One of the friends wants to call 911 but another is against the idea because he fears the authorities won't believe a group of young black and Latino men would innocently find a white girl passed out in their home without them being responsible in some way. So they decide to take her to the hospital and a encounter a series of mishaps along the way.

The film is part comedy, part drama and part thriller. It's emotionally charged and quite moving in places. It explores the thought processes that many black people go through in an emergency, particularly how will the situation be perceived by the police and other members of the public. A simple decision is not so simple when your good intentions could result in being held at gunpoint, beaten and/or shot by the police.

It's a fascinating, intelligent and thought-provoking film that is well worth watching.

 

[Spells & Karma]

Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)

If I had any expectations about what a mid-Noughties Herbie film might look like, this would be it. The tone is very much Herbie Meets Clueless, neither of which is a bad thing. Lindsay Lohan certainly has an Alicia Silverstone thing going on, and her brother is even played by Breckin Meyer. It's actually hard to believe this is a full decade after Clueless. Perhaps that shows how influential the earlier film was.

The film feels more youthful in tone than earlier Herbie jaunts. I was trying to work out if that's because of the styles of the Sixties and Seventies versus the Noughties, but nope: Lohan here is the best part of a decade younger than Michele Lee was in The Love Bug, and almost a decade and a half younger than Stefanie Powers was in Herbie Rides Again. It seems to reflect the changing times, as well as audience tastes.

Herbie himself is more anthropomorphic than in previous films. Now he looks sad by making the visors over his headlights droop. He "smiles" with his animated bumper. The sun visors move to appear from outside the car as furrowed eyebrows. At one point he even goes all out by standing up to pull a face at a villain. Presumably new technology made some of this possible (I dare say CGI was involved), but it's not really a change for the better as it leaves no real mystery about whether or not Herbie is "alive" and so it lacks nuance and food for thought. Mind you, I did quite like the new Herbie-eye view, shown using a special lens as he looks from his headlights.

There's a good cast, not a bad story and a great soundtrack with lots of familiar tracks. There's nothing really groundbreaking, but it's pleasant enough, and mostly feels like a natural evolution of the Herbie films.

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

Yeah, I liked Herbie: Fully Loaded. Possibly the best of the films without Dean Jones. Certainly an improvement over Herbie Goes Bananas.

Herbie himself is more anthropomorphic than in previous films.

I liked his flirtation with the New Bug - and Lohan's warning that she was too young for him.

 

[Biggie]

The Time Machine 2002.

The well heeled gentleman invented a contraption that will travel through time, so determined is our man here to stop the love of his life from getting her cap twisted backwards he will travel backwards in time and tell her to duck one assumes, as he ain't gonna take the bullet. Not never!

Turns out that our man goes way way way into the future and big surprises it's a dystopian hell and the ignorant savages ain't living right because our man here from 1899 knows how to fix society in the year of our Lord 654378 or whatever.

Thankfully the pretty lady learned to speak his tongue by reading a few stones meaning that she would be able to bring the man from 1899 up to speed with the failed society as he understands it. But the surface folk have been living in their way for umpteen years and year's.

Our man only gone and banished the the 10ft monsters that were simply going about business as evolution determined. Not stopping to consider if or who was the bad hombre. But yeah the pretty lady pointed her finger and.... soon the dead girlfriend is staying dead.

The whole thing is late night candle light...the man from 1899 wouldn't go toe to toe with the 10ft chap out looking for lunch. He'd soil his trousers. The broken moon was the star of the show.

 

[Angela Chilling]

The Time Machine 2002.

The well heeled gentleman invented a contraption that will travel through time, so determined is our man here to stop the love of his life from getting her cap twisted backwards he will travel backwards in time and tell her to duck one assumes, as he ain't gonna take the bullet. Not never!

Turns out that our man goes way way way into the future and big surprises it's a dystopian hell and the ignorant savages ain't living right because our man here from 1899 knows how to fix society in the year of our Lord 654378 or whatever.

Thankfully the pretty lady learned to speak his tongue by reading a few stones meaning that she would be able to bring the man from 1899 up to speed with the failed society as he understands it. But the surface folk have been living in their way for umpteen years and year's.

Our man only gone and banished the the 10ft monsters that were simply going about business as evolution determined. Not stopping to consider if or who was the bad hombre. But yeah the pretty lady pointed her finger and.... soon the dead girlfriend is staying dead.

The whole thing is late night candle light...the man from 1899 wouldn't go toe to toe with the 10ft chap out looking for lunch. He'd soil his trousers. The broken moon was the star of the show.

Have you seen the 1960s version of this film? I think it's a far superior film even though the special effects were less impressive.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Entertaining over-the-top pulp that gets a little too "A-Team" in its final act.

 

[Biggie]

Have you seen the 1960s version of this film? I think it's a far superior film even though the special effects were less impressive.

Yes I have watched the 1960s version and it is very good. The remake is truly awful and makes little if any sense. The whole time travelling cyborg failing to kill Sarah Connor because the murder robot is sent to a time after the previous attempts.... makes more sense.

 

[Angela Chilling]

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)

Emma Thompson has been relentlessly promoting this film recently so I thought I'd give it a watch to see if it is as interesting as she claimed it is. It's not my favourite film of hers (that would be Saving Mr Banks) but it is a good film but a bit too theatrical I think it probably would work better as a two-hander stage production.

Emma plays a retired school teacher called Nancy who is widowed and in all the time she was married never achieved an orgasm and her sex life was generally unsatisfying. So she hires a male escort to help her fulfil her sexual desires and he is the titular Leo Grande. Except for a short scene at the start of the film and another one near the end, the rest of the film (around 98% of it) takes place in the hotel room that Nancy booked for the location to spend time Leo. Around 99% of the dialogue is spoken by Nancy and Leo so this film has a strong feel of being a stage play even though it was written directly for the big screen. The writing is good though and the dialog is clever and witty and I laughed out loud on a few occasions.

Most of the film is about Nancy's reluctance to be intimate with Leo and though a series of conversations we find out more about the backgrounds and motivations of both characters. In many ways, Leo is too perfect: he is incredibly handsome, has a beautifully toned body and is charming, sympathetic, understanding, supportive and always seems to say the right thing at the appropriate time. He's like a middle-aged woman's fantasy of what an ideal sex worker would be like rather than being a totally believable character and that's not meant to be a criticism of Daryl MacCormack who is excellent in the role of Leo.

 

[Crimson]

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) -- honestly, the best movie I've watched in years. The film blends genres and tones in a way that is both chaotic and masterful, swirling between being serious, absurd, nihilistic, exciting, silly, romantic, raunchy and heartfelt. The movie exhibits some questionable notions about evolution and cheats at its own rules a bit; normally a major bugbear of mine, but the film was so relentlessly entertaining I just didn't care. (Unlike the other multiversal film of 2022, which collapsed under the weight of its own flaws.)

The biggest drawback to a film this bold is it makes one realize that most of the movies pumped out of Hollywood are formulaic corporate drivel.

 

[Angela Chilling]

Benediction (2021)

A biopic of World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon who let the authorities know about his disillusioned with the war and was sent to a psychiatric facility so he would avoid going to a courts martial for criticising the war effort. At the mental health hospital he meet and inspires Wilfred Owen in his writing of poems. After the war is over Sassoon has a succession of failed gay affairs, including one with Ivor Novello, before marrying a woman.

I'll start with what I liked. The film is very well acted and the casting is excellent. What I didn't like was everything else. The film is too long (almost 2.5 hours) and the story seemed to meander all over the place. In order to incorporate the poetry, the action if often interrupted with insertion of archive film footage and photos over which a voice recited some of Sassoon's literary works. This element of the film didn't work for me and it unnecessarily slowed down its pace. I found it hard to emotionally connect with the film and it having almost no score didn't help. I'm not sorry I watched it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else

 

[Angela Chilling]

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) -- honestly, the best movie I've watched in years. The film blends genres and tones in a way that is both chaotic and masterful, swirling between being serious, absurd, nihilistic, exciting, silly, romantic, raunchy and heartfelt. The movie exhibits some questionable notions about evolution and cheats at its own rules a bit; normally a major bugbear of mine, but the film was so relentlessly entertaining I just didn't care. (Unlike the other multiversal film of 2022, which collapsed under the weight of its own flaws.)

The biggest drawback to a film this bold is it makes one realize that most of the movies pumped out of Hollywood are formulaic corporate drivel.

I watched this a few weeks ago and it's undoubtedly a clever, interesting and visually stunning film. I can't pretend I understood everything that was going on but I still really liked it. I think I would enjoy it more on a second viewing.

 

[Spells & Karma]

You Again (2010)

This is one I hadn't heard of but when it popped up as a suggestion on a streaming service that cast list made it a must-see for me.

The plot felt familiar, but was also a really effective one: bullied High School ugly duckling blossoms into a swan and becomes a high flying PR executive. Eight years later she returns home for her beloved brother's wedding only to find that he's marrying the mean girl who made her high school life hell and is now adored by her entire family... including the dog.

It's well cast. Kristen Bell is likeable enough as the former geek, while Odette Yustman was perfectly irritating as the former Heather, reminding people at every opportunity that she's sweet and kind and adores her new family and doesn't care about material things... while simultaneously radiating manipulative, dishonest smug.

Of course, I came to see Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver, hoping these famous Final Girls would have some scenes together. And they do. Lots! Jamie Lee is former geek's mother. Sigourney is mean girl's aunt. And it turns out they, too, were at high school together and have their own stuff to deal with, which leads to all kinds of situational comedy, including a Dynasty/Melrose-style pool fight in ballgowns.

There's also Betty White doing her stock-but-dependable, ditzy-but-sassy grandmother; Victor Garber as the harried Dad; Kristin Chenoweth as a zany wedding planner. Plus cameos from Hall & Oates, Cloris Leachman and even Patrick Duffy no less.

Challenging it's not, but it's great fun and with a terrific cast that it's a bit of a thrill to watch interact.

 

[Angela Chilling]

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

Well, I'm not a fan of the TV series so I wouldn't normally have watched this film but I often force friends to watch films with me that they are initially indifferent about so I felt it was only right to agree to watch this with a friend when she wanted to see it.

I wasn't wrong in having misgivings about this film, in fact I was quite bored by it all. It felt very much like an extended version of a episode of the series rather than being a new film spun off from the TV show. There were too many characters and too many subplots which made the final result a bit of a mess. The main plot had 2 threads, the first was about the matriarch of the clan inheriting a house in the south of France from a former male friend and the second was a film production unit descending on the Crawley family home to film a drama. It was all very bland and twee, some of the plotting was ludicrously far fetched but this was never meant to be anything other than a cosy cash-in of the popularity of the TV series and fans will like it. However, there wasn't enough of interest for people new to Downton or those (like me) who never warmed to the small screen version.

 

[Angela Chilling]

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

This should have been a really good film. All the elements were there to make it one of the great instalments of the Jurassic franchise. They brought back all the main (living) characters from the first film i.e. the ones played by Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum and the CGI and special effects were still amazing but overall the film was very average.

The plot is much the same as every Jurassic Park/World film in that there was a villain CEO who wants to exploit the dinosaurs for money and the scientists are the good guys who have to stop him. Either by accident or design the baddie CEO looked a lot like Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.

I think the main weakness of the film is that there wasn't a huge focus on the dinosaurs, the film seemed more centred on getting the DNA of a girl that was cloned. As a result, a lot of the dinosaur jeopardy that made the previous films enjoyable was lacking here, even the dino on dino action was a bit lack lustre. It wasn't a terrible film but it should have been a whole lot better.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Theme-wise this movie is all over the place and I just couldn't figure out what I was watching, but I can't say it concerned me terribly. For the most part I found it an enjoyable experience with a pleasant aftertaste.
The plot twist (I think it was) concludes the story in a more straightforward 1970s slasher narrative and yet I'm not sure that this is what the movie was all about.
The flamboyant style makes it sometimes difficult to distinguish between caricature and "as is" and then there was that unexpectedly handsome man moment that threw me off balance.

The feeling itself - most suitably, given the retro nostalgia theme - had a whiff of déjà vu, too. I believe it echoed my reaction to Grant Goodeve's first appearance in DYNASTY. Grant wasn't the first handsome man in the Denver soap but he looked kinda otherworldly handsome.
And it's not because this actor looks like Grant Goodeve, it's really only about the unexpectedness of it all. A power so divine indeed.
He only appears in this scene and he doesn't have a name therefore I couldn't find the name of the actor. He looks very Irish.

 

[darkshadows38]

Devil Girl from Mars (1954) in watched this last week i think? yeah it was a sh*t show it was pretty bad it had really damn good acting though, i watched a riff of it and that made it right away a higher rating. instead of a rating of 2/10 i give it a 3/10.

 

[Spells & Karma]

9/11 (2017)

Imagine, if you will, the opening act of Speed. Add the divorce drama of Kramer vs. Kramer and some self-indulgent, naturalistic navel gazing reminiscent of thirtysomething. Then throw in the directional gusto and production values of a daytime soap opera. Oh yes, and set it at the scene of one of the worst atrocities to happen in the West in living memory.

What could possibly go wrong?

The ever-reliable Wikipedia reports someone at The New York Post to have said this film was "panned on social media as 'offensive'" (now I'm repeating it, that's something like fourth hand). Based on nothing but the trailer, another source said it "looks like one of the most offensive films ever made."

In execution the film is actually far too bland to be truly offensive. I'm sure there are plenty of other films with backdrops of real-life war or tragedy that should offend far more. 9/11 (the film) is undeniably tacky, though - even more so considering some of Charlie Sheen's comments regarding the collapse of the towers.

The most peculiar thing was that it's really unclear what - if anything - the film is trying to say about 11th September, other than an acknowledgement that it happened (which, let's face it, everyone on the planet knows about anyway). I couldn't help wondering why it was set there at all. The characters could be stuck in any old falling lift on any given day and it would have changed very little.

Characters watch actual news footage, which feels like an attempt to legitimise it but, frankly, only serve to make it seem tackier, making the self-obsessed characters' whining seem even more malapropos. Imagine spending possibly your last hours on earth in confinement with a narcissistic, feuding couple making the situation all about them. It's horrific in all the wrong ways.

The film went out of its way to make the characters unlikeable. Apart from the self-centred couple, there's the girl who has just dumped the rich, much older boyfriend who's been keeping her who works on an upper floor. At one point, on hearing what's happened to the tower, she guiltily confesses a secret heartfelt wish that he's been killed. And reflecting on the material riches he's provided her, she wails "You don't own it. It owns you. He owns you". It's typical of this film's dialogue. It seems intended to be deep and reflective, but just feels like production line soap opera. And it doesn't create empathy with the character. Why doesn't she go out and get a job and buy her own stuff? Then there's the bike courier who casually throws out racist epithets about Pakistani cab drivers. Since he's black is it meant to be an earnest attempt to add nuance by showing us that racism isn't exclusively restricted to white people? Pass. It's just another example of the weird, messy mess that is this film.

If, as seems to be the case, the people behind this film seem to want us to hate the characters early on so we can grow to like or even love them, it fails miserably. As I said, it's far too bland for us to care one way or another. I suppose I can half-heartedly applaud the choices made because even though it feels very much like bland made for TV film, at least it's not saccharine bland in the way most Lifetime movies are.

The performances are acceptable. Not the worst I've seen. Poor Charlie Sheen comes off the worst. He's fine as the cocky billionaire, but his range seems extremely limited. A couple of key moments when he's going for quietly pained nobility are embarrassingly awkward. Gina Gershon's performance might have been fine, but I couldn't get past that glamour model pout.

The best scenes were actually the cutaways to more peripheral characters. Whoopi Goldberg was characteristically reliable and likeable as Metzie, while Jacqueline Bissett was the best thing in the entire film with her natural poised regality perfectly suited to this character, occasionally crumbling as the gravity of the situation dawns on her. It's through her eyes that the film makes any kind of sense (apart from the fact that the youthful Jackie is meant to be Gina Gershon's mother, stretching my already frail credulity to the limits).

I feel bad even admitting this, but one scene in which the lift dropped as we saw the characters inside emote and thrash about in slow motion was so amateurishly directed and performed that it was comical. I burst out laughing and had a similar feeling to the aftermath of a Jimmy Carr joke: you know laughing makes you a slightly less-nice person, but funny is funny. And when bad films that don't know they're bad are funny, they're really funny.

Probably the kindest thing I could have said about this film is that it's "well-intentioned" (always a backhanded compliment). Trouble is, because I have no idea what it's trying to say, I can't even be certain about that.

 

[Willie Oleson]

CLUEDO meets PSYCHO meets SCREAM* (*as per the title).

Meets Big Plot Twist.

What a fabulous movie, I can't believe I had never seen it before. Well, initially that made sense because it's on Prime and I kind of expected it to be somewhat new-ish, but the lack of cell phones (and that one old-fashioned cell phone malfunctioning) seems a little too convenient for a stranded-in-the-middle-of-nowhere scenario.
Since the movie opens with talk about a late nineties murder case I assumed that story's present time was set in close proximity to said murder case even though it didn't seem to serve a purpose, artistically or story-wise.
Even if the movie failed spectacularly, at least I would have enjoyed my twisty and convoluted way to make sense of the obvious.
I recognized quite a few faces, almost too many, and it dawned on me that these actors had aged very well. Oh, the joys of being clueless**
Not that any of this spoilt the viewing experience, actually it felt like a bonus feature - as in "it really was an old movie all along".

Speaking of bonus, there's a character's background mini-story that could have been spun off into its own movie or series. It's something that could have happened to BREAKING BAD's Jesse Pinkman or a similar, rascally underdog type.

The depressing, intricated setting and relentless rainstorm helped to obscure the characters whereabouts every time something happened and it also enhanced the urgency and hysteria, sometimes with a dash of black comedy.

**in my defence, I watched it in the wee hours after binge-watching the time travel/Western series Outer Range.

 

[Angela Chilling]

View attachment 39524

CLUEDO meets PSYCHO meets SCREAM* (*as per the title).

Meets Big Plot Twist.

What a fabulous movie, I can't believe I had never seen it before. Well, initially that made sense because it's on Prime and I kind of expected it to be somewhat new-ish, but the lack of cell phones (and that one old-fashioned cell phone malfunctioning) seems a little too convenient for a stranded-in-the-middle-of-nowhere scenario.
Since the movie opens with talk about a late nineties murder case I assumed that story's present time was set in close proximity to said murder case even though it didn't seem to serve a purpose, artistically or story-wise.
Even if the movie failed spectacularly, at least I would have enjoyed my twisty and convoluted way to make sense of the obvious.
I recognized quite a few faces, almost too many, and it dawned on me that these actors had aged very well. Oh, the joys of being clueless**
Not that any of this spoilt the viewing experience, actually it felt like a bonus feature - as in "it really was an old movie all along".

Speaking of bonus, there's a character's background mini-story that could have been spun off into its own movie or series. It's something that could have happened to BREAKING BAD's Jesse Pinkman or a similar, rascally underdog type.

The depressing, intricated setting and relentless rainstorm helped to obscure the characters whereabouts every time something happened and it also enhanced the urgency and hysteria, sometimes with a dash of black comedy.

**in my defence, I watched it in the wee hours after binge-watching the time travel/Western series Outer Range.

It's a great film, I saw it many years ago so I'm probably due a re-watch soon. Its structure reminded me a bit of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None .

 

[Biggie]

Goldfinger.

Watching this movie again just confirmed my original thoughts when I first watched Goldfinger.

It's insane beginning to end. 007 foils another super crazy plot cooked up by a master criminal. A master criminal that employed a hat flinging henchman to dispatch him with the licence to kill. Oddjob.... just shoot him!

Nuking the gold deposit to increase the value of his gold a special kind of insanity. Just murder everyone at Fort Knox and wheel the nuke in remembering to cuff 007 to the bomb that the mad villain conjured up.

Quite handy that Beaver Plenty fell for our man from the ministry's charms and had a road to Damascus moment and decided that killing everyone in or around Knox was a bit bonkers.

The murder hat beloved by the guy that kept failing to off 007 stole the show.