Last movie watched...

[Apestrife]

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the third act too much, but the main twist is really superb, and many of the performances are terrific.  Here, do we know if [spoiler]Pepper still has her Extremis[/spoiler] superpowers as of Avengers 3?

Did you find it too over powered and over the top?

Also, these end credits. Awesome  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxL1p99EVCQ

If I remember correctly [spoiler]Pepper got cured. I think Tony reasons that if he was able to scribble it down while drunk, he'd be able to fix things sober.[spoiler]

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

THE ISLAND
I thought I'd catch up with this slice of Bayhem from 2005 and somehow still managed to be surprised at how terrible it is. I don't want to tread on Prof Bear's ground but it climaxes with what looks like a British Airways ad having just established that Ewen McGregor's character (with a mental age of thirty) porked Scarlett Johansen who has a mental age of 15 and then carries a small pistol up her chuff for half a day while buying ice cream for kids and playing on a swing. And I haven't even got to the heavy handed slavery and gas chamber imagery yet.

And I have no ducking idea how Ewen McGregor got his memories.

The Island? More like The Shitland.

I'm pretty sure that the company that made this optioned Michael Marshall Smith's superlative Spares, then let the option lapse and made this - which had a number of odd plot changes to make sure it was in no way at all anything like Spares. Apart from the cloning. And the basic plot of man goes on run with clone.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Gave up on Alien: Covenant, shortly after a crew decide to land on an alien planet without doing any kind of atmospheric testing or wearing helmets. I allowed the bit where they decide to split up for no good reason, but the prodding of alien flora for no good reason was stupid.

Compare and contrast with Alien, where they wear full suits and think about quarantine and stuff.

Did IQs drop sharply while Ripley was away?

[Tjm86]

You know Covenant is set before Alien, right?

Pedantry aside, I know what you mean.  I sat all the way through it in two or three sittings, which tends to be pretty much par for the course these days.  I'd like to say that the quality decision making improves but I'd probably get booked by trading standards for misrepresentation.

Decided to take a punt on One Crazy Summer, an early nineties student caper that I remember seeing on VHS.  A passable piece of comedy with John Cusack, Demi Moore and Bobcat Goldthwaite.  Some nice visual gags (Goldthwaite dressed as Godzilla stumbling all over a model housing estate with a cigar steaming away in the costume's mouth).  Fairly typical of its genre and the time but erring towards the higher end of the spectrum.  Certainly enough laughs to brighten up a fairly maudlin spate.

[Apestrife]

Captain America: Winter Soldier. Thought it was okay first time I saw it. It had some ideas, a bad ass Sam Jackson and a quite cool old Hüdra komputer speaking funny.

But it felt a bit short on those things this time around watching it. Last act mostly felt like a bunch of running from special effects, back flips, landing rolls and people punching each other in hopes of feeling interesting enough for me to remember them till the next scene they're in. The ending did nothing for me [spoiler]with the "heroes" (after causing a fantastic amount of death and destruction) talking their way out of things, with the compulsory burn some shit to erase the past --scene.[/spoiler] Not a bad film, but not for me. Would'v liked more of the Hüdra komputer and getting something to think about.

Now. On to Thor Ragrarök. Hoping it with all it's comedy holds up as well as Iron Man 3 did for me.

[Apestrife]

Thor: Ragnarök. Not as brilliant as iron man 3 in my opinion, but really good. And not only the "funny movie" many sees it as. Has a bit of brain as well. And a bit like DREDD showed that 2000AD can work on the screen, I think Ragnarök shows that a Jack Kirby-esque movie is possible. A wild and colourful film, one which I'm hoping for is used as a reference for the New Gods film which is said to be on the plans [spoiler]this one could perhaps even serve as an intro to it, how the old gods died.[/spoiler]

And while mentioning DREDD, that goes as well for it being more of a personal story rather than "save the world (and the occasional girl).

[Colin YNWA]

Finally got around to Isle of Dogs and man I'm glad I did. Okay I don't think the kids appreciated it as much as they did Fantastic Mr Fox I did. Such a compelling film and while okay the end felt a little neat and forced it such a joy getting there I let it slide very easily.

The visuals are just so stunning, the character so gloriously realised, the humour so ... funny and the its genuinely exciting at time.

Love Wes Anderson and this is no exception. Just brilliant.

[Mardroid]

Split, for the first time. Before that, I watched Unbreakable. Not for the first time in this case, but it was my first time seeing it on blu-ray.

Both quite different, but very compelling and enjoyable films.

[spoiler]In some ways, I wish I hadn't seen that spoiler online that connects the two films, as it would have been nice to be surprised.  But paradoxically, if I hadn't I might never have watched Split, anyway. It's a film that pretty much passed me by when it came out. I think I vaguely remember it advertised but didn't feel compelled to watch it, then I forgot about it.

I was still thoroughly enjoyed that bookend/cameo, however.

As for the main plot of the film, it didn't spoil at all.[/spoiler]

I'm looking forward to Shyamalan's new film, Glass.

[Tiplodocus]

UNLIKELY HERO; a comedy with Jeff Daniels, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds might be good if it had any funny bits and anything actually fucking happened and it didn't end with a character deciding not to be mentally ill any more.

More like UNLIKELY SHITE.

[Colin YNWA]

Just got in from a morning out a Sheffield 'Highland Fling', slightly disappointing family fun day, all a little hot and tired I sat down to notice Princess Bride was on Channel 4 and as luck would have it on 4+1 I was just in time for the sword fight... no intention of watching it, other stuff to do, but the family slowly drifted into the room one by one and by the time Vizzini dead drops to the right my wife declared, shall we get the DVD out and watch this properly.

Cheers all round.

No, just, no other film can do what Princess Bride can!

[von Boom]

Just got in from a morning out a Sheffield 'Highland Fling', slightly disappointing family fun day, all a little hot and tired I sat down to notice Princess Bride was on Channel 4 and as luck would have it on 4+1 I was just in time for the sword fight... no intention of watching it, other stuff to do, but the family slowly drifted into the room one by one and by the time Vizzini dead drops to the right my wife declared, shall we get the DVD out and watch this properly.

Cheers all round.

No, just, no other film can do what Princess Bride can!

So true.

Any time it's on in the cinema locally my wife and I make a point of going to see it. Through countless viewings it has never lost its charm.

[Hawkmumbler]

Had a solid triple bill yesterday with some friends hiding from this blistering heat. I concur with Colin on Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson is a true autuer of our times and his second animated outing is an absolute delight. Also very delightful to see a family film thats not patronising to the kids or tedius to an older audience.

Much the same can be said of Mary and the Witches Flower the first outing for StudioPonoc, the natural successor to Ghibli. Delightful, charming, funny, heart raising and jolly damn wonderful.

Washed down with a special screening of 4K Time Bandits. Now thats a delightful romp, quiet why I had never seen it before escapes me but it's just the tonic, so much so I instantly bought the blu just to watch it again, and certainly has me eager to check out The Adventures of Baron Munchousen and Jabbawoky.

[Professor Bear]

Like the majority of the viewing public, I got tired of the inexplicably-lauded Orphan Black, but luckily someone at Netflix decided to do a condensed version and then file off the serial numbers, hence: What Happened To Monday, an unexceptional near-future thriller about seven identical sisters - all played by Noomi Rapace - who were born after the introduction of a single child policy.  It goes nowhere you don't expect it to, including yet another example of the non-twist that seems to be plaguing modern dystopian storytelling, but it's competently made and really, do we ask any more than that?  This is the kind of sci-fi we deserve, so get your snout in the trough and lap it up.

I am not blind and/or deaf so must admit up front that 1990: The Bronx Warriors is utter fucking shit.  An Italian biker movie set in a dystopian NYC of the space year 1990AD, it's terrible in almost every way, but the final scene - [spoiler]after everyone is killed and the evil corporation wins[/spoiler] - is amusingly vicious, as are the various graphic instances of characters joining the choir eternal.  If you watch the blu-ray extras, the behind-the-scenes story of the lead actor Mark DiGregorio/Mark Gregory dropping off the face of the Earth after finding movie people to be a bunch of wankers is also pretty entertaining - though you get no resolution in the extras and have to do some digging online to find that the movie uberfans looking for him eventually - "probably" - tracked him down to an Italian self-help company where he claims he's much happier and seems well-preserved to the point you may suspect witchcraft until you take note that he was only 17 when he starred in Bronx Warriors after being picked up from a gym because of his brick shithouse proportions.
Not the best example of 1980s post-apocalyptic trash I've seen this week - that honor falls to the enjoyably daffy Warlords of the 21st Century made for buttons in New Zealand during one of the mid-80s US Writers Guild strikes - but it kills a laid back 90 minutes in the company of beer and pizza, and I'm actually quite looking forward to the sequel.

[JamesC]

I am not blind and/or deaf so must admit up front that 1990: The Bronx Warriors is utter fucking shit.  An Italian biker movie set in a dystopian NYC of the space year 1990AD, it's terrible in almost every way, but the final scene - [spoiler]after everyone is killed and the evil corporation wins[/spoiler] - is amusingly vicious, as are the various graphic instances of characters joining the choir eternal.  If you watch the blu-ray extras, the behind-the-scenes story of the lead actor Mark DiGregorio/Mark Gregory dropping off the face of the Earth after finding movie people to be a bunch of wankers is also pretty entertaining - though you get no resolution in the extras and have to do some digging online to find that the movie uberfans looking for him eventually - "probably" - tracked him down to an Italian self-help company where he claims he's much happier and seems well-preserved to the point you may suspect witchcraft until you take note that he was only 17 when he starred in Bronx Warriors after being picked up from a gym because of his brick shithouse proportions.
Not the best example of 1980s post-apocalyptic trash I've seen this week - that honor falls to the enjoyably daffy Warlords of the 21st Century made for buttons in New Zealand during one of the mid-80s US Writers Guild strikes - but it kills a laid back 90 minutes in the company of beer and pizza, and I'm actually quite looking forward to the sequel.

I like The New Barbarians in which the hero straps a giant drill to his car and drives it up the baddie's bum.

[Professor Bear]

Things going into buttholes that wouldn't normally go into buttholes is an underappreciated subgenre of the post-apocalyptic action movie, so I shall put New Barbarians on the list for future viewing.