Movie Record 2024 Edition - The Bear and Badger

davyK

Gattaca Another one I missed. Was convinced I had seen this but it's a late 90s release so that was right in the baby zone for us.

It's a fine example of how a pulpy sci-fi tale can become a rather splendid film. The cast is magnificent with brief but delightful turns for Earnest Borgnine and Gore Vidal. Uma Thurman has never looked more beautiful.

It's a bit pulpy/corny at the end, even taking the sad ending one of the characters has - but I thoroughly enjoyed this. It raises the story to be something better by embuing a real downbeat feeling to it - it had a feeling of impending tragedy.

b0r1s

One of my favourites.

acemuzzy

Gattaca is great. Once Upon A Time In America is an all-timer. I'm still angry at Cos FTR.

davyK

There's some lovely looking shots with eerie colour schemes - not sure if that's intended or the copy on Prime has issues.

nick_md

Watched that You'll Never Find Me last night, thought it was very good even though

Spoiler:

Out on Shudder now.

Cos

I’m never watching OUATIA again to reassess so I stand by it. Maybe it’d squeak a 4. Leone hadn’t directed a film for over 10 years at that point and it showed imo.

Cos

29. Memories of Murder
Not sure how it’s taken me 20 years to watch this but here we are. I have to admit I was a bit thrown initially by what felt like a clash of the nature of the crimes with some slightly goofy humour but it didn’t take long to find the rhythm.

It’s a gruelling watch from the detectives’ view as they struggle to find any possible lead, then just to try and catch a break whilst the killer is continually ahead of them. Seeing the toll it takes is brutal and then that ending, fuck. No idea if this influenced Zodiac but wouldn’t be surprised

It’s full of great performances and beautiful, patient shots. Just absolutely brilliant. [9]

Spoiler:

hylian_elf

Great film. Need to see it again, I caught it in the cinema on a re-release following Parasite doing so well.

Moot_Geeza

MoM is up there for me. Excellent film.

regmcfly

MoM is one me and our Tempy talk about on the regular. It's a top 10 of all time for me.

As is Sunset Boulevard, discussed earlier.

EvilRedEye

I guess Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness just hit different for you guys.

Diluted Dante

acemuzzy wrote:

Tremors (OG) Obviously pretty shit. But still mildly entertaining.

Spoiler:

Now waiting for Wookie to tell me it's "the best movie ever" or some bollocks

Yes, a well reviewed cult classic is obviously pretty shit.

Olimite

The Girl on the Train

Blunt really good in this but it’s a run-of-the-mill thriller that tries too hard to hide it’s twist and it rapidly descends into stupidity as it unravels.

LivDiv

Fast X
Softboy Momoa takes on seemingly invincible Vin Diesel as the rest of the large and growing cast struggle to find something to do. A series that used to live it's life a quarter mile a time has become flabby and lacking direction.

Ghostbusters
It's still brilliant

Jarhead
What starts as something of a celebration of the US Marines ends up critical of the whole system and the toll it takes on its men, yet doesn't quite go hard enough and the consequences seem rushed at the end. Left me with the feeling a lot of meat head hoorahs would think it's brilliant up until the last 20 minutes, for the wrong reasons.

Kow

Is that the original Ghostbusters? I rewatched that recently and found the humour to be way off now, especially for a kids' film

LivDiv

Some of the humour has indeed dated. Its rated a 12A here now fwiw.

davyK

Was Ghostbusters a kids film? I'm not sure that was the intention at the time of release.

Kow

Young teens I'd say, yeah, 12 maybe.

EvilRedEye

Just read a BBFC article on it, apparently the lack of a 12 rating at the time had an influence on what they rated PG as the only other option would have been a 15 - effectively they were more lenient as the only other option would be overkill for certain stuff.

Skondo

The Darjeeling Ltd.

Even for a Wes Anderson flick, this doesn’t do much. Three brothers meet for a train journey across India, organised by eldest brother Owen Wilson. It has some lovely moments, some sharp writing and genuine melancholy, but it really needs to do more. I still enjoyed it, but definitely one of his weakest in my opinion.

Three peacock feathers out of five.

Wookienopants

Road House

The remake.
Great fun, solid action, some great one liners and bone crunching fight choreography but fuck me, who thought Connor McGregor was a good idea?? Fucking state of his "acting".

Kow

THIS. IS. ACTING!

ShabbyMcCrabby

22. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Films like this make me wonder when big movies forgot how to tell stories. Was it when studios and producers got more and more power and intent got muddled? I wasn't expecting much from this and it was entertaining enough but it just felt like there was no A plot. Just a series of C plots with no feeling of forward momentum and that what forward movement they found was based of half baked reasoning. Btw, filmmakers, the A plot was Pheobe and her emotional journey and the ghost if you wanted to know which strand you should have focussed on. There's some creepiness here and some nice throwback practical effects but there's also a whole bunch of funny people given no real jokes to give, a bad guy that comes in way too late, and no real stakes or true fun at any point. The guy with down syndrome in front of me had an awesome time and loved all the nods to old stuff though so I think that counts for something.
[4]

LivDiv

Too many characters tends to be the problem. I noticed this has pretty much every character they could reasonably drag back in plus new ones.

See also Jurassic World Dominion and Fast X (probably 8 and 9 as well). Star Wars Sequel trilogy as well.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Yeah you're probably right. I think it's also because they want to give them equal balance in the film. Would probably be fine if they picked the girl to be the main and then everything else is just background flavour with her story being the main through line.

Gremill

15. Dune Part 2
Jaw dropping and truly spectacular sci-fi epic with, again, the cinematography as the true star. I can't quite get over how amazing this film looks and what an incredible job Villeneuve has done in building the world of Herberts books. It's almost hallucinatory at times, with the sequence on the Harkonnen home world doing what truly great sci-fi does - giving you the answer to something you hadn't even thought of. What does a world lit by a black sun look like? I can't wait to see this again. 10

davyK

Re Dune 2. My dick of a mate hasn't got his act together for a cinema trip so I'm glad I went on my own. Still want a rewatch in the cinema so it might be on my own again!

acemuzzy

The Kitchen

Tried unsuccessfully to get tickets to this at the London Film Festival, but glad to have caught it on Netflix. Very well acted (particularly by the main two - a competent kid being a rare treat - and also the celeb cameo), music was solid, and underlying themes thoughtfully handled. A deffo recommend.

davyK

THX-1138 Have watched this one a couple of times now. It goes up and down in my estimation with each viewing. It's very striking looking at the very least. I makes me wonder what oddness Lucas would have come up with if he hadn't struck gold with Star Wars because there's a lot to like here despite the weird patches of dialogue.

The Daddy

Poor Things. Initially I thought this was gonna be hard work, but ended up loving it. Glad stuff like this exists and even does well. 8.

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