Last movie watched...

[Theblazeuk]

It Follows - really intense, really bloody creepy. Actually gave me nightmares which never, ever happens. Though had to put aside my thoughts of [spoiler]why don't you get on a plane if it just walks everywhere it will take years to walk to China[/spoiler]

[Tiplodocus]

You're not the only one Keef. I really liked Terminator Genisys as well.

And me. Not brilliant but definitely fun to be had.

(My thinking is that not every meal needs to be cordon bleu, occassionally, a Pot Noodle is *exactly* what you are after)

[Mattofthespurs]

'Good Kill' with Ethan Hawke.

Brilliant film. About a pilot that instead of flying F-16's now flies drones from a GCS in Nevada.

(The whoring bit - My review is here http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=3774)

Highly recommended.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Les maîtres du temps/Time Masters



Despite starchiness (WHY DON'T THEY BLINK) and being a trifle stop-starty which I imagine can be put down to the rigorous expense and technicality of its production - Time Masters is a dreamy masterpiece of European animation with actually a fairly robust twist.

It's a joy to see the genius Moebius in bits of this and some segments are genuinely breathtaking. Absolutely worth owning the Masters of Cinema release for the extensive booklet and loving restoration. Glorious.

[Hawkmumbler]

How does it compare to La Planète sauvage/Fantastic Planet, also by René Laloux, assuming you've watched that masterpiece also. I have a huge soft spot for that film but Time Masters has slipped under my radar until now.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

How does it compare to La Planète sauvage/Fantastic Planet, also by René Laloux, assuming you've watched that masterpiece also.

Actually just about to - I'm new to the whole thing! They're actually Lady Geoffery purchases even she was a Laloux enthusiast before I'd even heard of Moebius. The Masters of Cinema release of Fantastic Planet even includes all of his short films which is a bloody magical purchase - seek it out! Really can't wait to watch it!

[Greg M.]

I love Rene Laloux's work - Fantastic Planet is a better film than Time Masters, but Time Masters is the one I have the greatest affection for. It's one of my favourite animated movies. There was a time it seemed to keep cropping up on terrestrial tv in the late 80s - as a boy, I originally found the ending quite frustrating, but it does work, left-field though it be. The weird faceless angel things have always stuck in my head - very trippy.

Oh, and on the Laloux front, don't forget Gandahar, if you can track it down at a reasonable price.

[Eric Plumrose]

LOVE & MERCY.

Not sure I'd say I was disappointed by it but... underwhelmed, perhaps. Seems I've seen several films I can't remember Paul Dano being in (which isn't necessarily a criticism) but I had no problem here buying into him as Brian Wilson. Unlike John Cusack, who basically plays John Cusack as Brian Wilson, a little too SMILEY SMILE to Dano's BRIAN WILSON PRESENTS.

[Jim_Campbell]

Ant-Man

Terrific fun. Lightweight? Certainly, but also engaging and very funny. At a whisker under two hours, it does exactly what it says on the tin and doesn't outstay its welcome.

Cheers

Jim

[Keef Monkey]

Watched/rewatched a bunch of things this weekend, so this is a long one...

Went to a screening of The Mist, was my first time watching it since the theatrical release. It blew me away then as probably the best King adaptation ever and it's just gotten more powerful with time. Apart from the fact it's a fantastic horror film, putting genre aside it's just an amazing film and I genuinely believe it to be one of the very best out there. Everything about the way that thing is constructed blows my mind, and the performances are brilliant across the board too. He doesn't get enough props, but Tom Jane is phenomenal in this. There are a couple of moments where the CG isn't the best, but for the most part the effects and creature designs are great and there are a surprising amount of very cool physical effects in there too.

It's obviously a very harrowing film to revisit (hence why it's taken me so long to get back around to it) and the atmosphere sticks with you for a very, very long time, but The Mist is a masterpiece in my eyes. If The Dark Tower ever happens I want Darabont at the helm.

Also stuck on Land of The Dead as it was the last in the original Romero series that Bea hadn't seen.  I was never anywhere near as down on this as most people seemed to be, and feel like it's held up really well. Bea enjoyed it too and declared it really good at the end, her favorite has been Day but think this was a close second. I was reminded how much of a crush I had on Asia Argento back then so all that came flooding back! It's gorier than I remember (unless they re-inserted some censored scenes since the cinema release) and there are a lot of very cool looking practical effects, back in a time when CG was used very sparingly.

Watched the Terminator 2 special edition cut for the first time and that movie is a real thrill to revisit! One of those movies I haven't watched in many years but where it feels like every frame and line is embedded in my mind because I watched it so many times at such an impressionable age. It holds up brilliantly, there are stunts in it that are still incredible (perhaps because hardly anyone does that kind of stunt work anymore) and the scenes I hadn't seen add something for the most part (the only clunker I felt was the Kyle Reese dream sequence, horribly cheddar). Watching it so soon after rewatching the first film it's amazing how different the tone is - that movie is a horror film and this one has some menace (Patrick is so good) but to turn it into the big action adventure behemoth that it is now seems like a really big gamble. Fair play to Cameron, his approach to a sequel is definitely to go in a different direction, which is all too rare. Absolute classic.

And last night we watched the Rogue Cut of Days of Future Past, which I still feel is the best X-Men film by a long way (with First Class in 2nd place). There are a lot of extra lines and extended takes in this cut, which don't add anything in the way of story but are all enjoyable additions, and then there's the Rogue stuff which was understandably cut really. It's not that the sequences with her are bad, just that they're completely unnecessary really. Nice to have them there but very easy to see why, when looking to loose 15mins of running time it would have been an easy choice to ditch those parts. Nice to have them back though. Quicksilver still steals the movie, and I still reckon using the character in Avengers 2 was a mistake. It was too soon after this and the Avengers take on him just didn't make an impression at all on me sadly.

Only annoyance is that while this now feels like the definitive cut of the movie, the blu-ray isn't in 3D. The last one was, and the film was shot in 3D, so feels pretty crappy to not have 3D in the package.

I love watching films, it's great.

[shaolin_monkey]

Watched/rewatched a bunch of things this weekend, so this is a long one...

Went to a screening of The Mist, was my first time watching it since the theatrical release. It blew me away then as probably the best King adaptation ever and it's just gotten more powerful with time. Apart from the fact it's a fantastic horror film, putting genre aside it's just an amazing film and I genuinely believe it to be one of the very best out there. Everything about the way that thing is constructed blows my mind, and the performances are brilliant across the board too. He doesn't get enough props, but Tom Jane is phenomenal in this. There are a couple of moments where the CG isn't the best, but for the most part the effects and creature designs are great and there are a surprising amount of very cool physical effects in there too.

It's obviously a very harrowing film to revisit (hence why it's taken me so long to get back around to it) and the atmosphere sticks with you for a very, very long time, but The Mist is a masterpiece in my eyes. If The Dark Tower ever happens I want Darabont at the helm.

Yeah, I love this film too.  The ending is radically different from the book -  not better or worse, but unexpected and pleasing, in a very nihilistic kind of way.  How many other films do you see ending like that, eh? 

It is grim throughout, you're quite right, but it's just so watchable.  The characters are pitched very well, particularly that religious nutter.  That actress gives a great performance, providing an opportunity for the actors around her to really get into the whole vibe.  Love it.

[Keef Monkey]

She's great yeah, there are a lot of really great, absorbing performances in it which is the main reason it works as well as it does. The ending hits so hard even when you know it's coming! I hadn't appreciated until this viewing that [spoiler]the army are actually coming from behind them, so the whole time they've been travelling through the mist they've actually been moving away from rescue (pushed on by the terrifying and distant sounds of the tanks to some degree). That the first woman to leave the store is safe on the truck is a real gut punch.

Rab Florence was introducing this screening and he described it as a film about cowards, and I thought that was quite an interesting way of looking at it. I've always considered it as one of those horror movies that's more about the way human beings behave and treat each other than the actual monsters in the mist but I hadn't really thought about it as plainly as that. It's fear that means nobody will step up to help the woman who leaves (which it turns out would have likely saved them) and fear that causes the more fragile group members to band around the salvation they see in the crazy religious woman. Florence also believed it was a bit of a metaphor for when life closes in and problems bear down on you, you can shut yourself away and draw lines or you can step out and face it. Was quite interesting to hear his take on it!

I've personally always thought that one of the strongest themes is the danger of pride - a lot of the bad things seem to happen as a result of people's stubborness and pride not allowing them to budge or see other perspectives. All the petty town squabbles rise to the surface, you've got the guys who insist on opening the shutter because they don't want to acquiesce to what they see as Jane's character's sense of superiority, and his neighbor who lets their rivalry be his undoing really, lots of conflicts like that. Maybe my favorite moment in the whole thing is just before his neighbor heads out into the mist - he says there's nothing out there, Jane asks him 'yeah, but what if there is?!' and in that moment (well then I guess the joke would be on me) I fully believe he doesn't want to go out at all. You can see the doubts in his delivery, but by this point his dumb pride has taken him too far to back down from his position. Brilliant moment and another great performance![/spoiler]

Didn't mean to type so much there, but it's a film that rattles around in the brain for a long time afterwards so have been thinking (overthinking?) about it a lot! Classic, I've still to see the black and white version so will need to make that my next revisit (once I've recovered from this one).

[JOE SOAP]

Despite starchiness (WHY DON'T THEY BLINK) and being a trifle stop-starty which I imagine can be put down to the rigorous expense and technicality of its production - Time Masters is a dreamy masterpiece of European animation with actually a fairly robust twist.

I love Rene Laloux's work - Fantastic Planet is a better film than Time Masters, but Time Masters is the one I have the greatest affection for. It's one of my favourite animated movies. There was a time it seemed to keep cropping up on terrestrial tv in the late 80s

There's a great English dub version of Time Masters done by co-producers BBC that was shown in the late 80's. Unfortunately it's not easy to find and the BBC haven't broadcasted it since the early 90's.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6fGBtMYLs

[JOE SOAP]

Quicksilver still steals the movie, and I still reckon using the character in Avengers 2 was a mistake. It was too soon after this and the Avengers take on him just didn't make an impression at all on me sadly.

Both films were in production at the same time and there's no way Marvel could've known how good Fox's Quicksilver sequence would end up being. Marvel believed they had the better story for that character rather than the way Fox cut him loose half-way through.

[Keef Monkey]

I love Rene Laloux's work - Fantastic Planet is a better film than Time Masters, but Time Masters is the one I have the greatest affection for. It's one of my favourite animated movies. There was a time it seemed to keep cropping up on terrestrial tv in the late 80s

There's a great English dub version of Time Masters done by co-producers BBC that was shown in the late 80's. Unfortunately it's not easy to find and the BBC haven't broadcasted it since the early 90's.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6fGBtMYLs

I just googled Time Masters and it looks like it might be a film I caught as a kid on TV and have been trying to remember the name of for years since! I was very young and seem to remember something about it scaring me or disturbing me slightly. Vaguely remember it having something to do with insects or vultures or a head wound or...something. One of those types of memories! Now I can rewatch it and figure out what it was.