Film/Video Discussion Thread - The Bear and Badger

Olimite

Ludon’t say.

Wookienopants

Yep, let's not get knickers in a Twister'bout it

regmcfly

Cinema is such a trivial pursuit anyway

Moot_Geeza

Yeah but we all love the Atmosfear.

Wookienopants

I can't stand the Scrabble for junk food, makes such long queues

EvilRedEye

~~Kinda frustrating there are only limited reviews for Mothers’ Instinct so far~~ I’m a Hungry Hungry Hippo for Mother’s Instinct reviews since there’s a preview screening it would be handy to go to tonight.

regmcfly

EvilRedEye wrote:

Kinda frustrating there are only limited reviews for Mothers’ Instinct so far since there’s a preview screening it would be handy to go to tonight.

Where the fuck is the board game ERE

hylian_elf

Diluted Dante

Hahaha

EvilRedEye

Made the executive decision to book Godzilla x Kong in IMAX next Tuesday so now I need to catch up on the four previous MonsterVerse films before then on top of everything bloody else.

EvilRedEye

Perfect Days (2023) - Japanese nothing-happens-em-up about a toilet cleaner who lives a mostly tranquil life listening to old cassettes and reading second-hand books. This is a new classic of the nothing-really-happens genre - I loved it. The indoor market in the subway station made me sick with nostalgia even though I’ve never been there. Also, I’m horribly tempted to start collecting cassettes. The final sequence is really well acted.

WATCH OUT - there is a brief post-credit sequence.

It would arguably be consistent with my rating system to give this five stars but to do that would ruin it. Will make a great lazy Sunday afternoon film. ★★★★☆

Moot_Geeza

Not on a streamer as far as I can see. Cinema jobbie?

afgavinstan

No I tend to wait til I'm home for a captains log. Just a piss, that's fine.

Moot_Geeza

EvilRedEye

Yeah, I saw Perfect Days in the cinema, where I also saw:

Mothers’ Instinct (2024) - Jessica Chastain plays a mother who has suffered from severe anxiety since she was in a car accident as a child that claimed the lives of both of her parents and Anne Hathaway plays another mother who suffers a present-day tragedy when her son, whose birth complications rendered her incapable of further children, falls from a balcony while trying to put up a bird house and dies.

Hathaway‘s behaviour becomes erratic after the death and she develops an attachment to Chastain’s son, which rapidly disturbs her as Hathaway allows her son to play on the balcony her own son plummeted from and is involved in an incident where he ingests peanut, to which he severely allergic. Is Hathaway a danger to Chastain’s family or are we just witnessing the unfortunate intersection of Hathaway’s grief and Chastain’s anxiety?

In the absence of critic reviews of this film I was forced to… make up my own mind?! About how I was supposed to feel about a movie?! What?! In the end, I thought it was good and was glad I took a risk on it. It’s not perfect - the editing is odd and jerky in places and the ending isn’t particularly tonally surefooted, but I thought it was pretty effective. ★★★★☆

EvilRedEye

Also, the BBFC title card at the beginning omitted the possessive apostrophe in the title, which I was scandalised by.

Unlikely

I See You is a film I have watched without having heard of it. It is a perfectly 2-3 star film as long as you do what I did.

Paul the sparky

I see you Jayke Soolee

EvilRedEye

Back at the cinema grindstone tonight, chipping away at the Oscar noms with Robot Dreams and then following it up with Late Night with the Devil.

EvilRedEye

There’s a FAMILY in this animated movie screening, outrageous!

Kow

And some idiot on his phone!

EvilRedEye

Robot Dreams (2023) - I’m still a bit like “WTF did I just watch?”. In a world of anthropomorphic animals, a lonely gamer dog buys a robot friend. Dog and Robot become the best of pals but then due to slightly contrived in-universe reasons Robot gets stranded on a beach and Dog cannot get to him until the next summer holiday season next year. And that’s, like, THE MAIN PLOT OF THE FILM, this robot just lying there on the beach.

On a moment-to-moment level, it can be quite cute and charming but it doesn’t particularly hang together amazingly as a movie - I have a really strong suspicion the plot worked better in its original format as a comic book.

This has been described as bittersweet, and it is, but I think there’s also a note of really harsh cynicism in this I didn’t particularly like. People fuck over the main characters for no reason. There’s a pretty racist depiction of a Chinese character. At one point a visual joke is made at the expense of older women’s bodies. The core idea of the robot friend undoubtedly hits different in the AI-bullshit tech-bro world of 2024 then when the book was first released and these additional issues, while minor, make you question the kind of people that were behind this story.

I suspect some of you will like this (there are a couple of shout-outs to retro gaming in it) but I just couldn’t get on with the storytelling, which was too far away from what I want in an animated film. ★★★☆☆

Diluted Dante

Is it this kind of robot?

Wookienopants

Oh behave

The Daddy

Loved Robot Dreams.

EvilRedEye

Late Night with the Devil (2023) - It’s 1977 and TV host Jack Delroy is having a difficult time - his wife has recently passed away with cancer and the ratings of his late night talk show Night Owls with Jack Delroy are floundering, having never recovered from his bereavement break. But Delroy has a plan - an occult-themed Halloween special could be about to change everything…

The film is presented in a found-footage style with the bulk of the film made up of supposed master recordings of the live broadcast of the special. Black and white ‘behind the scenes’ footage fills in the gaps during advert breaks. These interludes do not particularly convince as real footage, it’s more of an excuse to include unfiltered dramatic scenes without the characters being aware of being broadcast.

There is a certain amount of contrivance at play here, not an inappropriate amount, but don’t set your realism-expectation-o-meter to maximum or you’ll be disappointed. I’d say the nearest comparable is something like Inside No. 9 but a bit more serious.

I liked it. I do think it’s a fragile kind of good though in that you need to bring good vibes or don’t go at all - if you didn’t like the trailer or don’t feel like seeing it then I just don’t think you’ll be won around. There is one particular line that felt like the filmmakers were anticipating this film to have most of its life via home video so while it does work as a cinema film, if you can’t make it during the cinema release then I wouldn’t cry about it. Overall, I liked it as something a bit different. ★★★★☆

EvilRedEye

Oh yeah, got on the bus home, went up to the top floor - was empty. I get off and turn to head home - an ominous, dark figure is staring right at me from the back window of the top floor, mysterious eyes peering at me from inside a black hoodie pulled tight. Unsettling.

Paul the sparky

It means you're going to die in your sleep tonight

EvilRedEye

There’s now an incredibly loud screaming ringing noise reverberating around my neighbourhood.

Diluted Dante

EvilRedEye wrote:

There’s now an incredibly loud screaming ringing noise reverberating around my neighbourhood.

Things are back to normal at least.

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