Last movie watched...

[Keef Monkey]

Have been continuing my F&F rewatch so got to Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, which I like a lot. It feels a lot like a Step Up movie in places with the set-up and is nothing like the action juggernauts that came after, but the car chases are cool, Tokyo looks beautiful and it's got a nice Karate Kid arc to it. My biggest complaint with 7 is that [spoiler]Lucas Black isn't used more because I expected more crossover than just a token cameo, because I did like his character.[/spoiler]

And Fast & Furious (the 4th one, which they forgot to put a number on) which is still great. Not as over the top crazy with the action as the more recent films but it's definitely where the escalation starts. By this point you're really pleased to see the original cast back and having forgotten how it ended I actually jumped off the couch and did an excited fist-pump when the credits rolled.

Finally got round to a home rewatch of Guardians of The Galaxy too, and aside from the film still being fantastic fun (easily my favorite Marvel movie) the 3D Bluray is hands down the greatest looking movie I've ever seen in my life. It looks astonishing, so crisp it's unbelievable and the whole palette and design of the movie just makes for a really incredible feast for the eyes. Never seen a transfer like it.

[Professor Bear]

My biggest complaint with 7 is that [spoiler]Lucas Black isn't used more because I expected more crossover than just a token cameo, because I did like his character.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I think that might have been by necessity of Black looking middle-aged in F7 despite his playing a high school kid.  Another reason for the brief appearance of the characters (the female lead doesn't even get a speaking part) may be that Tokyo Drift isn't particularly well-regarded even by F&F fans, to the point it was effectively written out of the franchise.  I think there's even a line in one of the follow-up movies about how Han would never set foot in Japan.[/spoiler]

[Goaty]

Stonehearst Asylum - as saw that on Netflix USA last night, as realise it out at UK cinema this week! It was interesting film, loosely based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Nice twists as didn't reading the story before.

[Ghost MacRoth]

What we do in the shadows

Mockumentary following vampires living in New Zealand. Some really nicely done effects is the first stand out thing about this film.  The fact they are done in that 'handcam' style just makes it that much more mundane and believable, despite how unbelivable the instance is.  Deadpan throughout, it did make me laugh out loud a couple of times, and kept me amused for the entirety of the film.

[Hawkmumbler]

What we do in the shadows

Mockumentary following vampires living in New Zealand. Some really nicely done effects is the first stand out thing about this film.  The fact they are done in that 'handcam' style just makes it that much more mundane and believable, despite how unbelivable the instance is.  Deadpan throughout, it did make me laugh out loud a couple of times, and kept me amused for the entirety of the film.

Just saw the trailer for this on tumblr and was gonna ask if it was any good. Definitely worth my time by the sounds of it.

[Dandontdare]

What we do in the shadows

Mockumentary following vampires living in New Zealand. Some really nicely done effects is the first stand out thing about this film.  The fact they are done in that 'handcam' style just makes it that much more mundane and believable, despite how unbelivable the instance is.  Deadpan throughout, it did make me laugh out loud a couple of times, and kept me amused for the entirety of the film.

Just saw the trailer for this on tumblr and was gonna ask if it was any good. Definitely worth my time by the sounds of it.

There was a bit of a discussion about this in January : http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,31824.msg860703.html#msg860703

[shaolin_monkey]

What we do in the shadows

Mockumentary following vampires living in New Zealand. Some really nicely done effects is the first stand out thing about this film.  The fact they are done in that 'handcam' style just makes it that much more mundane and believable, despite how unbelivable the instance is.  Deadpan throughout, it did make me laugh out loud a couple of times, and kept me amused for the entirety of the film.

Just saw the trailer for this on tumblr and was gonna ask if it was any good. Definitely worth my time by the sounds of it.

There was a bit of a discussion about this in January : http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,31824.msg860703.html#msg860703

Yeah, I bought it as soon as it came out - bloody hilarious (excuse the pun).  I watched the first 20 mins with my girls, but when they got to the bit where they discuss [spoiler]why they prefer the blood of virgins [/spoiler]I decided it probably wasn't appropriate! 

A nice documentary style, very much in the vein of This is Spinal Tap, but a bit less 'real' looking if you know what I mean.  Some unexpected and very well done special effects, all related to vampiric powers.

Lots of laugh out loud moments, but can't really go into them in great detail for fear of spoiling it for others.  I loved all the bits with Murray though.

[Professor Bear]

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films - a documentary about the straight-to-VHS kings of the 1980s-1990s rental store.  I assumed a lot of the films featured were just clumsily put together, but according to this, they were made by a guy - and later pair of guys - whose first language wasn't English and who constantly and disastrously misunderstood the US market they were trying to crack.  Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were obsessed by making movies, but had more enthusiasm than common sense and by the time they got good advice about their projects the movies were almost finished shooting - hence Superman 4.  It's fascinating stuff, if only to see the empire they built on flim-flam and the near-incidental creation of the 1980s home video rental market that in turn impacted hugely on Hollywood because by the time big-budget movies got to the video stores they were on an even playing field with anything that had a poster hanging on the wall.
The above led me to want to rewatch Masters of the Universe, a cheesefest of clumsy POV action shots, dreadful flying SFX and Frank Langella hamming it up a storm as panto villain supreme Skeletor, in a role he desperately wanted so he could impress his son, who was as into He-Man as everyone else under 12 at the time.  I can't really think of anything to recommend it objectively apart from the air of earnestness and a lack of cynicism that's refreshing.  I had a big grin on my face at the end of this, though I think it mostly came about because I was in an indulgent mood.

[Keef Monkey]

Finally got round to watching The Babadook last night and thought it was fantastic. The imagery, the line of ambiguity it walks, the sound design, thought the whole thing was brilliantly executed and very intense. The way the threat itself is used is particularly effective, very disciplined. Lots of use of shadow and shapes that your eyes can't quite interpret. That sort of thing done well is pretty rare, and is the kind of thing that makes you scared of your own home at night. One of the best horror films I've seen in a long time.

[Famous Mortimer]

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films - a documentary about the straight-to-VHS kings of the 1980s-1990s rental store.  I assumed a lot of the films featured were just clumsily put together, but according to this, they were made by a guy - and later pair of guys - whose first language wasn't English and who constantly and disastrously misunderstood the US market they were trying to crack.  Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were obsessed by making movies, but had more enthusiasm than common sense and by the time they got good advice about their projects the movies were almost finished shooting - hence Superman 4.  It's fascinating stuff, if only to see the empire they built on flim-flam and the near-incidental creation of the 1980s home video rental market that in turn impacted hugely on Hollywood because by the time big-budget movies got to the video stores they were on an even playing field with anything that had a poster hanging on the wall.

I did a review of this for mine / my friend's site:

http://iscfc.net/2015/01/08/electric-boogaloo-the-wild-untold-story-of-cannon-films-2014/

Reading it back, it's a bit all over the place (my review), but I did do some original research on the guy who really got my goat.

[I, Cosh]

A recent pair of transatlantic flights afforded me the opportunity to catch up with the big movies I'd missed at the pictures. Most of them seemed to be more about the performances than anything else.

Whiplash was good tense fun. All the media attention for this one was on JK Simmons as the teacher, but Miles Teller holds his own as the student. It was definitely a good choice to make both characters insufferable bellends as it made it into much more of an intense game of chicken than the playground beating it had sounded like. Drawbacks were crappy airline headphones (and no adaptor for my own) and the fact that I was getting bored of the song the third time they played it.

Birdman was also anchored by a pair of strong central performances (can't actually think of anyone who was bad, but Keaton and Ed Norton were both cracking) and further elevated by a streak of humour hitherto unknown in the work of Inarritu. While it's technically excellent, has some great jokes and I certainly enjoyed it, I'm not convinced that the supposed satire on art vs money is anything more than wind blowing into the neck of an empty bottle.

Another great performance, from Jake Gyllenhall this time, in Nightcrawler but with a bit more going in behind it. Our man is a weirdo and a chancer who stumbles into the world of selling grisly footage of accidents and crime to 24 hr news services. While it gets fairly preposterous towards the end, I really enjoyed this.

It looks fantastic. Gyllenhall manages to play weird awkwardness with a fascinating blankness. There's just enough real humour alongside the darkness and the central theme of our insatiable need for sensation and acceptance of what that delivers is something I thought worth considering. Definitely the cream of this crop.

I managed to stay awake for the first proper stomping in The Equalizer. It was alright and well built up to, but then I looked at how long was still to go and fell asleep instead.

[Buttonman]

I'd go with you on those Cosh and agree that Nightcrawler was the pick of the litter.

I saw Robot Overlords and apart from 2 Progs showing up it was really disappointing. Surprisingly dull given the premise and I lost interest after half an hour.

Did really like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with Richard Burton excellent as the pissed up spook.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Fantasia

A film I haven't seen since a lot of viewings in my youth - and as such there is a giddy evocativeness to the beautiful mythical landscapes of The Pastoral Symphony and the breathtakingly doomy Night on Bald Mountain - the latter of which is what can only be described as deeply metal.

Due to the nature of how often this was chopped and changed and the fact that it's more of an elaborate and admirable artistic experiment than an actual narrative animation it doesn't hang together remarkably well but it is at the very least a high water mark in the history of animation - some sequences within are unfathomably intricate.

Refreshing that one of the biggest companies on the face of the planet had such experimental offerings in its initial canon.

[shaolin_monkey]

Fantasia

A film I haven't seen since a lot of viewings in my youth - and as such there is a giddy evocativeness to the beautiful mythical landscapes of The Pastoral Symphony and the breathtakingly doomy Night on Bald Mountain - the latter of which is what can only be described as deeply metal.

Due to the nature of how often this was chopped and changed and the fact that it's more of an elaborate and admirable artistic experiment than an actual narrative animation it doesn't hang together remarkably well but it is at the very least a high water mark in the history of animation - some sequences within are unfathomably intricate.

Refreshing that one of the biggest companies on the face of the planet had such experimental offerings in its initial canon.

I do love Fantastia, but it's a bit of a mixed bag, eh?  The standout sections for me were Rites of Spring, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Night on Bald Mountain, and the intervals where they have fun with the instruments and soundwaves. 

The bits I found mawkish were the Nutcracker Suite, Ave Maria, and the one with the hippos and bubbles, whose name eludes me.  That said, re that last one I have a right bloody guffaw when the crocodiles turn up and cause havoc, and the final collapsing stage sets are a great punchline.

When all is said and done though, it is a tremendous technical feat, given it was all hand drawn, painted and timed perfectly to the music.

[Goaty]

The Mist, finally watch it on Netflix as last saw it at cinema 8 years ago, strangest it not on TV or Sky Movies for last 8 years??

That was really a great film, I know why I didn't re-watched it soon cos of that ending, so brutal!