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Last movie watched...

Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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Recrewt

I saw News of the World recently too and agree that its a decent movie with the usually dependable Tom Hanks.  I do feel that it pulled a lot of its punches though and I would have liked to have seen some of the events that happened off screen but I appreciate that would have made it a lot darker movie with a higher age rating.


Colin YNWA

Bohemian Rhapsody has sprung up on Amazon Prime and after it getting a lot a great reviews and being a big Queen fan of old I sprung at the chance to watch it... well at least it was free to me huh.

I appreciate that biopics and other films based on true stories have to be granted poetic license to allow them to tell a good story but here - wow! The time covered is so recent, the facts and understanding of the way it plays - very freely - with the truth is stunning. What makes it unacceptable is it turns a truly fascinating tale in reality into an utter movie cliche and I'm amazed the many living folks who surely(?) had a say in this allow it to be told the way it did. There's a slue of songs being recorded in the wrong place - that fine. There's tours and a raise to fame and a MASSIVE concert in Rio that are utterly misplaced in time - which is worrying as it entirely removes a very real struggle with their first management team and a slow and hard rise to success.

But the real crime is the way they remove Queen playing South Africa from the story all together. The fact they supported Apartheid is the reason Live Aid was so redemptive for them. The fact that they remove this means they have to make up the drama and reason they needed redemption and they do this horribly. Queen hadn't been split prior to Live Aid they'd been touring stadiums for a year or so - hence they were so brilliant at Live Aid. The manager - cast as villian wasn't removed until 1986... oh I could go on but what's the point.

The also play very fast a loose with the timing and way Freddie Mercury dealt with his HIV diagnosis which I felt was tasteless.

I'm fine with movies playing with truth for the sake of story. But to remove the truth so you can tell a less interesting, less important and utterly cliche story is utterly unforgivable. Mind at least the key performance of the band were pretty good to great.

Bohemian Rhapsody - Bohemian Crapsody more like.

Funt Solo

I watched their Live Aid performance just the other day - it was fucking amazing. Freddy Mercury, man - like a god striding the Earth.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

TordelBack

So true. One of the most remarkable performers of all time, and a fascinating person who in a better world should be disappointing us with his Brexit/Covid opinions at this very moment.

I'm delighted that my eldest (14) has been a big Queen fan for several years now,  but glad to see that Colin's thoughts on the movie echo my own, which were partly why I denied the kids a looked-for cinema trip at the time.

Rara Avis

I came out of this movie thinking 'Wow I had no idea Freddie Mercury was straight".

pictsy

Conspiracy Theory

This film is better than it has any right to be.  Its use of real conspiracy theories is, at best, clumsy.  But that's only if you are aware of the theories and their proponents (mostly white-supremacists).  The basic idea of the film is "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you!"  And there is a very creepy love story.  Not sure about a woman falling in love with her stalker.

That all said, it's a lot of fun.  Pretty standard action-thriller film.  It has Patrick Stewart failing in doing an American accent.  I like the agency of Julia Roberts character, it's just a shame about the creepy love story part.  The film would have benefited from not doing that as it is bizarre and forced.  Almost like she developed Stockholm Syndrome.

TordelBack

Quote from: pictsy on 24 February, 2021, 09:23:28 AM
Conspiracy Theory

Somebody check if Tharg's totem is still spinning, I fear Forum inception.

pictsy

I'm guessing I've missed something because I don't get it

TordelBack

Quote from: pictsy on 24 February, 2021, 12:06:48 PM
I'm guessing I've missed something because I don't get it

Conspiracy Theory drama occupying a portion of the forum, now here's a report on watching a film dramatising Conspiracy Theory,:who has incepted what in whose subconscious,  which is the deeper dream level and does Funt Solo really look like Leonardo diCaprio?

Professor Bear

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 23 February, 2021, 06:29:50 AM
Bohemian Rhapsody

Best bit was Freddie's wife finally twigging that he was gay:
"Say, Freddie seems to be getting on really well with Kenny Everitt... (face slowly changes to a look of realisation)"

pictsy

Quote from: TordelBack on 24 February, 2021, 12:27:46 PM
Quote from: pictsy on 24 February, 2021, 12:06:48 PM
I'm guessing I've missed something because I don't get it

Conspiracy Theory drama occupying a portion of the forum, now here's a report on watching a film dramatising Conspiracy Theory,:who has incepted what in whose subconscious,  which is the deeper dream level and does Funt Solo really look like Leonardo diCaprio?

OK  :)

milstar

Hard Boiled (1992)

I like to think the perfect mindset for watching this Hong Kong actioneer, is if you have the mind of 15-year old boy. Which is to say, I have yet to grow up :) I remember this film about a decade ago when I watched it with my Dad, who called it trash. Me, greatest action of all time (yes, John McClaine). Nevertheless, after all flaws in the movie, and there are plenty - cheesy plot, cheesy lines, two-dimensional characters, over the top exaggaration, body invulnerability, snippets of (otherwise mindblowing) choppy slow-mo, awful music; I found the great amusement in sound effects, special effect, stuntwork, stylish bloody violence, almost balletic choreography, and slow motion, which Woo perfected with this film - all masterwork that for the genre. It doesn't pretend to be some cinematic high art masterpiece, but for what it tried, it did best.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Funt Solo

Quote from: TordelBack on 24 February, 2021, 12:27:46 PM
...does Funt Solo really look like Leonardo diCaprio?

<---- If Leonardo diCaprio looks like a constipated potato, then the answer is yes.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

CalHab

Ladyhawke (Starz on Disney+). I discovered that Disney+ now has an extra tab with quite a number of tv series and an eclectic selection of films. I guess this now justifies the subscription for adults once the rather good WandaVision finishes. Scrolling through, I saw Ladyhawke, which I hadn't seen in a long, long time. Great, I thought.

Fellow squaxx will not be unfamiliar with the jarring sensation of looking at a story you enjoyed when young and realising that time has not been kind. I hadn't realised this is a Richard Donner film, which made it all the more surprising to find that the film is a mess. Matthew Broderick is preposterously miscast as a medieval French thief (he channels Ferris Bueller at some points). Better is Rutger Hauer's silent and brooding knight and Michelle Pfeiffer's peripheral and underwritten fair maiden. However, the monstrously oversized elephant in the room is the score. It's a mix between a traditional orchestral effort and some synth music from the Alan Parsons Project. I can see what they were aiming for, and if it was Vangelis then it could have been great. But it's not. It's bad. So bad that it's stunning they put this film out with it. What on earth were they thinking?

After that, you get to the really weird bits, like the fact that the season changes from scene to scene. What's that about? The plot is paper thin but still isn't coherently conveyed. It's just a total mess. Which would be okay if it was entertaining, but it has huge sections where the story doesn't move, which is just boring and odd for Richard Donner, who is a very good action director.

Lovely scenery, though.

Jim_Campbell

#15299
Quote from: CalHab on 26 February, 2021, 10:47:00 AM
Ladyhawke (Starz on Disney+). I discovered that Disney+ now has an extra tab with quite a number of tv series and an eclectic selection of films. I guess this now justifies the subscription for adults once the rather good WandaVision finishes.

Don't forget that Falcon and the Winter Soldier starts two weeks after WandaVision wraps up. Loki starts (I think) four or five weeks after that finishes, but if you like Filoni's animated Star Wars stuff, The Bad Batch starts in the gap between F&TWS and Loki.

EDIT: Bad Batch trailer here, for anyone that missed it.
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