Last movie watched...

[sheridan]

Forget the movies what on Earth are you doing drinking coffee before going to bed???!!!!

6pm is the latest I allow myself a cup of tea... I'm off topic aren't I!

I'm one of the people who isn't affected by euphoric effects of caffeine...

[JayzusB.Christ]

just watched 2015 puritan horror flick The Witch.  Excellent stuff; nice to see Finchy laughing on the other side of his face.

[TordelBack]

I fear there's something wrong with me: hot on the heels of positive reviews for The Last Jedi and Ghostbusters  (2016), I'm now in the position of saying nice things about Bright.

Cant deny that I really enjoyed it, terrific premise (what if our world really was the Fifth Age of Middle-Earth-with-the-numbers-filed-off, as opposed to the Shadowrun/Allen Nation thing I was expecting), some good action and decent performances. Will Smith was the wrong man for the part, way too much movie baggage combined with way too familiar a schtick, but other than that, how I wish this was a pilot for a Netflix show. We never even saw the dwarves!

I'm sure I'll get back in lockstep with the gatekeepers of contemporary criticism soon.

[von Boom]

I fear there's something wrong with me: hot on the heels of positive reviews for The Last Jedi and Ghostbusters  (2016), I'm now in the position of saying nice things about Bright.

Cant deny that I really enjoyed it, terrific premise (what if our world really was the Fifth Age of Middle-Earth-with-the-numbers-filed-off, as opposed to the Shadowrun/Allen Nation thing I was expecting), some good action and decent performances. Will Smith was the wrong man for the part, way too much movie baggage combined with way too familiar a schtick, but other than that, how I wish this was a pilot for a Netflix show. We never even saw the dwarves!

I'm sure I'll get back in lockstep with the gatekeepers of contemporary criticism soon.

I watched Bright. I'm not as enthusiastic about it as you TordelBack, but it was good. Netflix has already said there will be a sequel, so perhaps a show isn't too far in the future.

[JamesC]

Did anyone see the trailer for the next Netflix movie which played after the Bright credits?
It's a revenge flick called The Foreigner in which Jackie Chan goes after Gerry Adams (or rather Pierce Brosnan as a thinly veiled Gerry Adams).
It looked a bit troubling.

[Professor Bear]

I walked in on my dad watching The Foreigner, and he seemed terribly confused by it.  His take seemed to be that either Brosnan or Chan were under contract to make X amount of films for someone and are now at the stage where they agree to anything just to get it all over with.

[The Legendary Shark]

Just had me an X-Men marathon, haven't seen the first three in years but still enjoyed them all - and I'll tell you what: you can keep The Last Jedi, Logan is still my favourite film this year.

[dweezil2]

Couldn't finish Bright to be honest, thought it would be more aptly titled Shite- a noisy, moronic mess of a film, with the total waste of a talented cast!
There were a few lines of dialogue here and there that lifted it above the risible, but not enough to save it.

I think I'll fire up the far superior Alien Nation instead, which the film blatantly cribbed from.

[Smith]

Logan is still my favourite film this year.

I second that emotion.
As for Bright,it was okay,but the cop movie Ayers is directing never really mashes with the comic book movie Landis is writing.

[Rara Avis]

Finally had some time to watch some documentaries ..

Prophets Prey - It's about the breakaway sect of Mormons who still practice polyamory. In particular it's about how the current leader became the current leader and how he uses and maintains his power.

Mommy Dead and Dearest - How do I describe this without major spoilers? A single mother struggles to raise her sick daughter alone but all is not as it seems ... makes it sound like a movie but you couldn't make this stuff up

[Jim_Campbell]

Due to an unexpected bit of free time yesterday and nothing else on the schedule that fitted the time we had available: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

I'll admit to never having seen the original, so I didn't come to this with much baggage and I thought it was terrific fun. The cast are uniformly great*, the script is sharp and funny, and the film barrels through its two hour running time at an entertaining clip. Literally my only gripe is that someone leaned on the orange-and-teal preset a bit hard in the colour grading suite and it's a little hard on the eyes in a few scenes.

*Karen Gillan, in particular, proves very deft at comedy, which I've not seen her do before. (I know the GotG movies are funny, but I don't think Nebula really qualifies as a comedic role.)

[pictsy]

Atomic Blonde

I don't like to get myself hyped up over movies because that almost always leads to disappointment.  I did see the trailer for this film however, and made a mental note to give it a viewing when I had the opportunity.  Unfortunately this film did end up disappointing me a bit, but probably because of my lack of expectation.

I saw the trailer off the back of watching both John Wick, which I enjoyed for the well shot fight sequences.  Atomic Blonde looked to be a film that was following John Wick in that aspect.  And it does for the most part.  The film has some really well shot and thought out fight sequences.  It also has a slow-mo fight sequence where it kept slowing down and speeding back up and slowing down and speeding back up.  It wasn't the worst example of this I've seen in a movie.  In the last year Wonder Woman has probably the worst example I've seen and it's my second biggest complaint about that film.  Nevertheless, I am no fan of it.  But Atomic Blonde doesn't over-do it and I can let it off.

Atomic Blonde also has this sexy 80's vibe going, which again I'm no fan of generally but in this film I liked it.  It wasn't perfect, however.  Sometimes it clashed with its setting and sometimes the modern cinematography.  James McAvoy was a delight throughout and easily the shining star in the film.  Charlize Theron was a bit of a disappointment.  I usually like her in whatever she's in, but in this she struck me a dull.  I dunno, maybe that was the point.

My big disappointment with the film is the spy thriller aspect.  I felt it was setting things up nicely, but as the film progressed I was getting concerned how they would tie everything together.  I hated the ending.  I thought it was stupid.  I mean, it made sense in a 'let's not think too much about it' kinda way.  I got it.  I just felt most of the film deserved better.  It was a let down.  Something simpler and more obvious would have been more satisfying.  It was at that point I realised that I expected too much from the film.

I'll probably watch it again in the future.  I'd need no other reason than James McAvoy is great in it and I loved his character.

[von Boom]

When I saw Atomic Blonde what it made me want to do was watch Alec Guinness in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People.

I enjoyed AB well enough that I'll watch it again, but it put me in the mood for more Le Carre type books and films.

[pictsy]

I did consider making a comparison between AB and the TTSS mini-series, but felt that would be unfair as the quality of the mini-series is hard to compete with.  Both TTSS and Smiley's People are an absolute joy to watch and are gems I am glad I was introduced to.  Still, they are were my mind also went after viewing AB.

[Mardroid]

Bright

I enjoyed that a lot. Comparisons to Alien Nation are understandable but I think the fantasy spin on it worked well. It's interesting that it didn't just go with a humans and others theme, dumping the other races all into the unjustly maligned roles. The orcs are in that situation, (and there's a historical reason for this) but the elves,if anything, are put in an elite wealthy caste, which makes sense as they're often depicted that way in fantasy novels.

It was rather predictable in places - [spoiler]who didn't forsee the revelation concerning Will Smith's character a mile off[/spoiler] but it wasn't unsatisfactory.