What was the last film you watched?

[James from London]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

An anthology movie made up of a handful of short stories, all set in the Wild West. If there's a common theme, it's the expendability of human life. It's a Coen brothers film so there's lots of dry humour juxtaposed with lots of extreme violence, with one really tender story right in the middle. And it looks beautiful. As is often the case with anthology films, some parts work better than others, but ultimately it's very satisfying watch.

Bohemian Rhapsody. I do not recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Freddie Mercury of historical truth about real persons.

I have a different opinion. I've watched Bohemian Rhapsody a few days ago and really liked it. It did come across as a sanitised version of Freddie Mercury's life rather than an historically accurate portrayal of who he was but once you put that aside there is so much more to enjoy in this film. The best thing in the film was the outstanding performance of Remi Malik who is so good in the role that you could almost momentarily forget that it is dramatic performance and think it's a documentary. Thank goodness that Sacha Baron Cohen dropped out of playing the role of Freddie Mercury because I can't imagine he would be anywhere near as good.

Interesting. Those do seem to be the two prevailing opinions about that film.

Terence Stamp is equal parts beautiful and creepy as the stalker who locks the object of his affection away in his cellar in the hopes that she will fall in love with him. Great stuff.

That looks great!

Just watched ...

Girl On The Train - not a bad film but was kind of hoping it would have been better.

Yeah, I think I was expecting something more substantial. Had I known it was so popcorny going in, I might have enjoyed the ride a bit more. But as a mixture of Hitchcock (The Lady Vanishes, Vertigo) and one of those slick domestic thrillers from the early 90s (Sleeping with the Enemy, The Hand That Rocked the Cradle) with a vaguely proto-feminist spin, it was good dumb fun.

I saw the stage version of this last week starring Ronnie Mitchell off of EastEnders. She's perfect casting, really excellent. It looks really good on stage as well, but ultimately that can't disguise the thinness of the overall story. Maybe it just works best as a book.

I wonder what happened to Steve Guttenberg. I used to have quite a crush on him, and last night reminded me why.

Ha, I just saw this! I worked with Steve Guttenberg a few months ago on an episode of a CBBC series -- very random! He was very nice, in a "professionally very nice" sort of way.

 

[Richard Channing]

That looks great!

It is. And it's on Netflix in their 'Classics' section.

 

[James from London]

it's on Netflix in their 'Classics' section.

And in the UK too!

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Ha, I just saw this!

Proving that all questions are answered on SoapChat if you're patient enough.

I worked with Steve Guttenberg a few months ago on an episode of a CBBC series -- very random!

I'll say. But very cool indeed.

 

[Seaviewer]

To Trap a Spy (1964)

The first theatrical outing for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

This was produced by padding out the original "Solo" pilot film, which was fortuitously shot in colour, to feature length with additional "too hot for TV" footage. A different edit became the first televised episode "The Vulcan Affair".

I've yet to watch the other two versions but it's fairly easy to tell where the extra scenes were grafted on once you're aware of it.

 

[Angela Channing]

I just saw Green Book (2018). What a great film! It's a bit like Driving Miss Daisy in reverse but so much better. In places the film was laugh out loud funny and at other times it was so moving, it had me in tears. Viggo Mortensen is so good in this and my favourite performance of all those that have been nominated this year for the major awards. One of the best films I've seen in a long time.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Cars 2

My first time with this one. Good fun!​

 

[Willie Oleson]

^
Is there a James Bond type car in it, or is it actually the British villain car?

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Is there a James Bond type car in it, or is it actually the British villain car?

Finn McMissile - voiced by Michael Caine - is very similar to Bond's Aston Martin DB5. And has a lot of the same tricks and gadgets...

 

[Willie Oleson]

I think I'm going to buy the Despicable Me collection.

 

[Payton Cross]

For the first time in my life is saw the movie "Toomorrow" a old Sci-fi movie from 1970 with Olivia Newton-John.

This movie was so bad that it was really entertaining to watch, even Olivia could not really save this movie. Sorry Olivia

 

[Justine]

Hereditary (2018). It's a dumb storyline but it's jumpy enough to scare you.

 

[James from London]

The Goob (2014)

A small British film about a seventeen-year-old boy living in the Norfolk countryside, a summer "coming of age" story I guess you could call it. It reminded me a lot of the BBC sitcom THIS COUNTRY, which I really love -- a similar part of the world, the same sort of naturalistic, fly-on-the-wall camera style and acting -- but while it's got some funny bits, there's an underlying sense of menace which makes you think, "Uh oh, this isn't going to end well." But the tenser it becomes, the more gripping it is. And about halfway through, there is the most brilliantly unexpected use of 'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer, which makes you feel like you're listening to it for the first time. Even if the rest of the film wasn't as good as it is, it would be worth watching for that bit.

 

[Swami]

The Naked Gun.

Swami

 

[Swami]

The Naked Gun 2 1/2 - The Smell Of Fear.

Swami

 

[James from London]

Terence Stamp is equal parts beautiful and creepy as the stalker who locks the object of his affection away in his cellar in the hopes that she will fall in love with him. Great stuff.

A BIG thank you to Richard for making me aware of this one! I loved it. I wasn't expecting much more than a slice of '60s horror exploitation, which I'd have been happy with, but this was much more substantial than that.

Interesting that it was made in 1965, the same year as The Ipcress File. The few glimpses of '60s London we get here -- pretty, leafy Hampstead -- are a bit swingier than the rainy, overcast Whitehall of Ipcress, but there is one scene set in Trafalgar Square. It's funny to think of Terence Stamp’s real-life flatmate at the time, Harry Palmer, shuffling papers just up the road while Stamp drives past with the original Maggie Gioberti in the boot of his car.

Like Karen Mackenzie, Samantha Eggar wakes to find herself locked in a cellar with a wardrobe full of clothes in her size -- only her captor isn't a shlub like Phil Harbert, but the Adonis-like Stamp. Casting him as a meek little weirdo seems very strange at first, but it kind of contributes to the off-kilter oddness of the whole film. And his performance is so brilliantly awkward and tortured that after a while you just buy it. (Oh and there's also a bathroom scene that is reminiscent of Krystle and Joel Abrigore's on DYNASTY, whilst being somehow both kinkier and more chaste.)

Stamp's character is like an English working class Norman Bates, a sexually repressed man-child who surrounds himself with dead butterflies rather than stuffed birds. Like Janet Leigh in Psycho, the target of his obsession is a liberated young "woman of today", whom he feels threatened by as well as attracted to. There's also an element of 1967's Bonnie and Clyde to their dynamic: Warren Beatty's impotent Clyde to Faye Dunaway's more worldly Bonnie.

In part, Stamp seems to represent the confusion and resentment of those who felt excluded from the '60s social and sexual revolution. His angry rant about not being able to understand Picasso or Catcher in the Rye is brilliant and weirdly moving.

And the print (or digital equivalent thereof) on Netflix is tip-top. The colours really pop!

 

[Seaviewer]

Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem

This is like an Aliens film in the format of a disaster flick. We're introduced to the residents of a small town who become collateral damage in the battle between the Aliens and Predators raging around them. Some of them live and some of them die but we don't learn enough about any of them to really care which is which.

 

[Willie Oleson]

It's not just fear, it's also desperation and sadness, and the actors really made it work. Eventually it becomes sort of a horror/thriller movie, but the best part is the couple in the car.
You can smell the misery.

 

[James from London]

The Party (2017)

This was only seventy minutes, but I lost patience and gave up halfway through. Despite an impressive cast -- Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Cillian Murphy, Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Katz, etc. -- it just felt very phoney, like a not-very-good stage play. From what I saw, it's essentially one long scene that takes place at a posh dinner party, where everyone's got their own storyline and/or secret, but none of it feels real. I think it's meant to be set in London but I'm not sure. The multi-national casting works against the sense of place -- they just feel like a bunch of random high profile actors slumming it in a low-budget movie rather than real people who genuinely know each other. It's not that Kristin Scott Thomas couldn't be married to Timothy Spall, or Patricia Clarkson to Bruno Katz, I just don't buy it in this context. Quite liked Cillian Murphy's coke head though.

 

[Swami]

Carry On Cleo.

Swami