[Ti_pin_man]

watched the Hugh Jackman - Prisoners over the weekend, mostly from the recommendations on here.  Really interesting story and if you are a parent you'll connect to this film.  Really thought provoking.  At times it reminded me of History of Violence.  I would also confirm the acting didn't really give me any empathy to the Hugh and Jake characters, not sure if this was the direction or acting but either way the story carried the film. 

[tomtom]

That's not hard to beat though I don't think. Whenever I've been to the pictures this year I've seen the adverts and thought no, no, no, maybe but probably not, no. Worst year for films for some time I reckon.
Strangely I found myself on a flight on Monday and against my better judgement, and lack of anything else, I watched terminator genysis. I had no intention of watching this film after what they'd done to the others but I enjoyed every minute of it! Arnie was superb.

On Denses recommendation I watched terminator Genesis last night. I was rather disappointed it didn't feature a cyborg modelled on Phil Collins - but actually thought it was alright. A couple of not too signposted plot swivels kept things interesting and Arnie was back to his best. It seems playing unemotional binary characters with no depth suits him. Who'da thunk it eh?

[Fiend]

I'm with the Dense-Tomtom film guru circle on that one. Really quite a decent remake. Plenty of nods to the originals but stands up fine as a (slightly haphazard and shallow) action film in it's own right, and yes Arnie was on good form, the way the put his aging character in was neat.

[36chambers]

Not much of a review on my part, but I've just finished watching the new terminator and in contrast to the Fiend-Dense-Tomtom club, I thought it was terrible.




(+1 for Prisoners)

[tomtom]

Not much of a review on my part, but I've just finished watching the new terminator and in contrast to the Fiend-Dense-Tomtom club, I thought it was terrible.
(+1 for Prisoners)

Sorry... but blame Dense...

[Wood FT]

Watched the Spielberg/Hanks film 'Bridge of Spies' over the weekend

I was expecting an overdone Americanised 'Tinker,Tailor..' but it was actually very good. Mark Rylance in particular was captivating as the Russian spy Rudolf Abel. You leave feeling good about the plot but as someone with only vague memories of the wall coming down the setting in Post-war Berlin was enlightening in it's grimness, more so than actually visiting the places.

Recommended.

[dontfollowme]

I also enjoyed Bridge of Spies. I thought it was going to be a bit of a plodding type film but Hanks and Rylance made it a good watch.

[TobyD]

Watched the Spielberg/Hanks film 'Bridge of Spies' over the weekend
...
Recommended.

Just saw this tonight. I totally agree, a fantastic movie; I usually dislike movies directed by Speilberg (on the grounds on appalling sentimentality and tedious obsession with absent fathers) or featuring Tom Hanks (on the grounds that he's annoying) but I really liked this, it manages to be dramatic, entertaining and feature some great shots (I liked the opening mirror / self portrait one especially). One duff note was the people grinning at Hanks on the metro at the end, someone should have made him cut that bit.

[SA Chris]

I've usually regarded Hanks as highly annoying and overrated, but though he was excellent in The Road to Perdition, so prepared to give it a shot.

[tomtom]

I've usually regarded Hanks as highly annoying and overrated, but though he was excellent in The Road to Perdition, so prepared to give it a shot.

I find his voice and face irritating. Other than that no problem...

[cjsheps]

Straight Outta Compton - brilliant film. At times, a proper "feel-good" movie, and surprisingly deep at others. You'll enjoy it more if you a bit about the rap scene at the time, and NWA members' trajectories after the group. A lot of stuff was skimmed over, but you can only fit so much into 2 hours.

[tomtom]

Star Wars Spoiler Alert:

NSFW  :

[Fiend]

 

[Jim]

I'm with the Dense-Tomtom film guru circle on that one. Really quite a decent remake. Plenty of nods to the originals but stands up fine as a (slightly haphazard and shallow) action film in it's own right, and yes Arnie was on good form, the way the put his aging character in was neat.

I also watched this the other night and concur with Fiend's summary. A good one to watch when the misses is out

[Fiend]

A Serbian Film (cut/censored version).

Now this is something unusual for me, I started watching it for the shock value and finished watching because it was fairly intriguing.

Note: I inadvertently watched the cut version (for UK release maybe?), and a few of the most notorious scenes were heavily cut i.e. the baby rape scene, the beheading while raping a woman scene, and the face-fucking a woman with her teeth pulled out scene - all much tamer than the normal release. As such it really wasn't all that graphic and grotesque, although I guess I didn't get the full effect of it. HOWEVER I would say the cut version actually makes a better film, as it works better with an omnipresent atmosphere of perversion and dread rather than relying on and thus being overshadowed by a few moments of shock value.

And it is actually a pretty decent and pretty well made film. The pacing is good, the sense of "WTF am I getting into" from the main character comes across well, the contrast between his semi-gentle "vintage pr0n star" style and the modern and blandly cruel Eastern bloc group he gets tangled with is done neatly with a good soundtrack. The way it escalates to the end kept me watching, and some of the subtle moments are downright menacing.

However I do feel the concept was rather weaker than the execution. The "villain" didn't have much depth and the....circle he belong to was rather vague, not in a "ominously mysterious" way but in a seemingly shallow way. There could have been a stronger point - but hopefully not overly-moralistic - point about the depths pr0n can sink to and how far it can be detatched from eroticism, and people's motives in that environment, but it didn't really happen (obviously I know there is a political message / analogy to Serbia conflict there but that seems less crucial to me?).

[a dense loner]

Wtf fiend!? 

There'll be hell to pay when Doylo finds out who leaked his next climbing film script!

[Will Hunt]

Seriously Fiend, WTF?

How can you watch that and start rooting around for deep meaning?

[Fiend]

I was bored and prepared to turn it off pretty quickly (whenever I have - extremely rarely - dabbled in any modern shocker / torture pr0n / whatever films they have utterly disinterested me) and get back to watching gaming streams / EPIC TV / toy soldier painting tutorials at any moment, but I didn't. If you read about the film (it was a bit notorious on release) the director/producer/whoever does talk about the "deep meaning" about the serbian conflicts and politics, not personally something I took from the film though.

[Fiend]

Ex Machina

Didn't get a chance to the see this at the cinema - but well worth a watch at home. As other have said - creepy, freaky, minimal psychological thriller meets low-key philosphical sci-fi. Really "enjoyed" it. Reminded me of some of the spookier books I've been reading in the last year.

[Lopez]

A series more than a film  but wacthes more like a long movie than a series as the episodes aren't really self-contained...

Watched Jessica Jones during the holiday period. A seriously good watch and a very diferent take on the superhero universe. Wouldn't even know how to describe it, and after reading what people write about it i'd say i'm not the only one with that problem. It's just... different. And good. Very good.

Watch it if you like dark psychological character driven shows about antiheros with a plot to match and nods to the classic Marvel comics. Don't watch it if you like Disney style hero shows with happy endings

[rich d]

Star Wars: watched the 3 originals the kids loved the Ewoks and yoda- says it all really. Thought the reboot was better than all the others. But it's still a kids film and a decent adventure romp.

[Oldmanmatt]

The new Star Wars thing

3D version. Thumbs up from son #1 (age 15) and son #2 (age 7). I thought it was fun also. Plot development seemed much looser than in the previous films but ... whatever.

The Force Awakens is supposed to be the first of three sequel films but since Disney has restructured itself in the last few years to be all about film franchises I guess there will be a whole load more until they have totally exhausted every possible re-working of the dark side/ light side theme.

Took my two (10 and 7) because my partner and her two weren't interested (though she booked it for me as a birthday treat and it was better than having to explain everything six times in a whisper at every scene change).

My daughter (10) has seen all the movies on DVD and was a bit "meh" about it (she's an avid Dr Who/Terry Pratchet fan and thinks Star Wars  is a bit "low brow" (yes, she's like that)).

They were blown away.

And I really enjoyed it.

It seemed much more in keeping with the original films and blessedly short of the crap humour injected into the prequels.


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[Oldmanmatt]

With timely serendipity, I just watched "Interstellar" with Mrs OMM.

8 minutes 29 seconds...

Before I first had to hit pause and explain.

She's smart, scored 141 on last years standard IQ test (we did it for a laugh); just absolutely no grasp of abstract concepts.

Musical, accomplised pianist, whiplash wit, but put her I front of a sculpture and she's just going to ask "why?"


No. She didn't get it.

Thought she was going to belt me, when I started talking about identical twins, one travelling near the speed of light and the other standing still...


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[a dense loner]

Tonight I tried to watch agent 47, turned it off after 15 mins since it was worse than it had a right to be. I then tried to watch Black Mass, turned it off after 10 mins. So I settled on A fistful of dollars. I didn't turn it off.

[Teaboy]

I watched The Danish Girl, not my thing but if you like that sort of thing (i.e. a worthy film were fuck all happens) it's probably quite good as I didn't hate it.

I also watched John Wicke, that is my kind of thing and it was quite good