Last movie watched...

[abelardsnazz]

Lost Soul: documentary about the troubled history of the 1996 version of The Island of Dr Moreau, one of the worst films I've ever seen. Original director Richard Stanley's vision could have been brilliant, but circumstances dictated it wasn't to be. Fascinating if you have any interest in how great ideas end up unrealised or compromised.

[dweezil2]

Lost Soul: documentary about the troubled history of the 1996 version of The Island of Dr Moreau, one of the worst films I've ever seen. Original director Richard Stanley's vision could have been brilliant, but circumstances dictated it wasn't to be. Fascinating if you have any interest in how great ideas end up unrealised or compromised.

Saw this doc at the London horror fest several years ago and subsequently picked it up on Blu-ray-it is indeed fascinating stuff, describing events that are equally hilarious and tragic- it's so disappointing that Stanley never got to see his vision brought to life.

I do have a soft spot for the finished film though, as it's like watching a car crash play out on screen!
Brando's performance is nothing short of bizarre and many of the cast appear pissed, stoned or both on screen!

It's pretty much the Apocalypse Now of horror/fantasy films, but not in a good way!

[abelardsnazz]

I was intrigued about HG Wells accusing Joseph Conrad of plagiarism, I didn't know about that before.

[abelardsnazz]

Jesus Christ Superstar. Well it is Easter.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Justice League: I quite enjoyed it despite the incoherent story, CGI overload and Henry Cavill's awful CGI'd mouth movements. The Flash I found to be the most entertaining of the characters with the most compelling background story though Jason Momoa's Aquaman was solid too. He really should play Lobo as he was boozing all the time. Marvel films are better-made none the less, and there was a flashback scene where the Amazons, Atlantians and even Green Lantern's combined to take on Steppenwolf together. This scene contrasted badly with a similar one in Thor: Ragnorak where Valkyrie battled Hela which showed you what happened rather than exposing you to an info dump and exposition. It's uneven with many plot holes, but JS has some good moments and might have been much better if they'd made it longer rather than trying to cram everything into a two-hour run. Spiderman: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnorak are better-made films, but despite the poor storytelling I still feel there's some hope for the DCEU yet.

[TordelBack]

...despite the poor storytelling I still feel there's some hope for the DCEU yet.

That sums it up for me too.  In a way the Cavill Superman films work far better now as a trilogy with Justice League as its final part, giving Clark some sort of arc from a life of dour self-absorbed looming-about to finding purpose and joie-de-vivre via a Super Breakfast Club, with Batman as both matchmaker and gooseberry.  Gags like Aquaman [spoiler]sitting on the lasso[/spoiler] go a long way to puncturing the pomposity of the first two flicks, and even the cack-handed ground-level view from the NotChernobyl family served to introduce stakes other than the principals' delicate egos and love-lives.

If they can capitalise on the excellent casting (anchored by the luminous Gal Gadot) and keep the light-hearted fraternal squabbling going, while following the current plot back to more Fourth World stuff (rather than the hinted detour to [spoiler]Injustice League[/spoiler], ugh), there really is potential for better to come.

(Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman cancel each other out Awful:Wonderful to yield a nett zero for the other DCU films).

[Keef Monkey]

Went to Isle of Dogs and Pacific Rim: Uprising at the weekend and loved both of them. The animation in Isle of Dogs was beautiful and the story was great, just a very nice pleasant experience of a movie. Definitely one of my favourite Wes Anderson films.

Was a bit worried about Uprising as the response has seemed pretty mixed to it and I absolutely love the original, but I felt like it did everything I needed from a sequel but also threw in some good surprises and story and action beats I really didn't see coming. Was grinning like a loon throughout and genuinely felt that rush of excitement from the action scenes that's all too rare these days. Cast were excellent, lots of great chemistry (Boyega is all charisma and great to watch), and the mechs were badass. I know Pacific Rim movies are easy to dismiss as big dumb popcorn fodder, but given how much more enjoyable they are than any of the Transformers movies they're clearly not as dumb as they might appear.

[Satanist]

The Shape of Water - A modern day fairytale where a mute woman fucks a magic fish-man which also has something to say about homophobia & racism.

I was glad they explained how his dick worked as I had been wondering about the mechanics.

It looked nice and Michael Shannon really does have the oddball bastard roles nailed.

[radiator]

Isle of Dogs - not much to add over what Keef said. Beautiful film.

[Tiplodocus]

...(anchored by the luminous Gal Gadot)...

Are we still allowed to fancy her?

[JamesC]

The Glitterball

A 1977 Children's Film Foundation effort - a sort of bargain basement ET. I have some vivid memories of watching this as a child so it was pretty nostalgic and fascinating. I couldn't believe the size of the tins of Rover biscuits and Quality Street chocolates in the supermarket scenes - they were huge!
The story is pretty simple. An alien (the titular Glitterball - a ping pong ball painted silver) crash lands on Earth and is found by a young boy. The lad and his mate soon communicate with the alien and realise that it A: needs to eat as much 70s junk food as possible (preferably Heinz Custard. I don't think Heinz even do custard anymore) and B: tap into a high voltage electricy supply so it can 'phone home'. Progress is hampered by 'Filthy Potter' a part time window cleaner and petty thief who wants to kidnap the Glitterball in the hope that it can help him break into the Supermartket safe.
It's all good fun with some quite nice stop motion animation and even some half decent model work on the simple but effective space ship. The whole thing looks like it cost about £500 to make which is all part of the charm. It's only about an hour long - definitely worth a watch.

[Jim_Campbell]

...(anchored by the luminous Gal Gadot)...

Are we still allowed to fancy her?

It's antisemitic not to.

(Ducks and covers.)

[Professor Bear]

Two possible jokes in response to that, the first being "Don't worry, Jim, you'll be safe because you aren't a Palestinian child", and of course the ever-popular "THAT IS TYPICAL OF THE HARD LEFT", which can be embellished by drawing attention to the use of the word "hard" in relation to Gadot's history as little more than eye candy in expensive films.

Robot Overlords - a low-budget UK sci-fi I bought from Poundland that is heavily inspired by John Wyndham's Tripods trilogy, but kneecapped by disastrous dystopian YA novel storytelling sensibilities, a constant struggle with tone, and an episodic script.  It manages a neat trick of not reducing at least one of its two female characters to sex object or matriarch archetypes until the final minutes of the film where for some reason two asexual protagonists develop a physical attraction to each other, and to be fair to it, it's not so much bad as just cheap-looking and lacking in any identity - if you told me this was a couple of episodes of a CBeebies tv show strung together and with some PG swears dubbed in post, I would have no problem believing it.  Somehow Gillian Anderson and Ben Kingsley got roped into this, and they give proceedings more legitimacy than they deserve, but I bought it from Poundland, so I can hardly say I was expecting better or that I feel cheated.

[JamesC]

Quigley Down Under

Sounds like something you'd hear in a Doctor's office but it's actually a forgotten western from 1990 starring Tom Selleck.
It's a pretty interesting film - Quigley (Selleck), an incredible sniper/sharpshooter travels to western Australia ostesibly to shoot dingos and vermin from the land of evil ranch own Marston (Alan Rickman) but it turns out the job is actaully to murder aborigenes. Quigley takes exception to this, throws Marston through a window and adventure ensues. The tone's a bit uneven. It's actually quite a dark film with something to say about equality and the corrupting influence of power. Rickman still thinks he's playing the Sherrif of Nottingham though and hams it up to high heaven. Selleck is really charming and charistmatic - he makes a great cowboy and is completely believable as the capable and self confident foreigner. It's a shame Selleck didn't do more westerns.
The film is probably 20 mins too long and drags a bit towards the end. it's definitely worth checking out though, especially if you like westerns but feel like something a little different. It's on Netflix.

[Link Prime]

It looked nice and Michael Shannon really does have the oddball bastard roles nailed.

I watched Nocturnal Animals the same weekend as The Shape of Water- the guy is a bona fide acting genius.