Last movie watched...

[I, Cosh]

Armageddon is more than twice as good as Deep Impact and completely deserves its status as my eighth or ninth favourite Bruce Willis film.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I'd have a gander at Grave of the Fireflies if you can, James.  It has an unjust reputation as being a tear-jerker, but it's actually surprisingly upbeat and fun, especially the ending where the two kids are finally reunited.

No, it's not!

[The Legendary Shark]

Deep Impact is much better than Armageddon.

[Hawkmumbler]

I'd have a gander at Grave of the Fireflies if you can, James.  It has an unjust reputation as being a tear-jerker, but it's actually surprisingly upbeat and fun, especially the ending where the two kids are finally reunited.

No, it's not!

Except it actually is, in a morbid kind of way.

It's also one of the few movies that actually has to balls to point out America commited the biggest war crime lf the secnd world war?

[TordelBack]

Armageddon is shite, but also good. Deep Impact is good, but also shite.

[The Legendary Shark]

Armageddon has Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck. Deep Impact has Robert Duvall and Morgan Freeman.
.
I rest my case.

[dweezil2]

Watched Dredd again over the weekend!

Still a bloody good film! 

[Mardroid]

The 7 Psychopaths

That was... different. Dark, twisted, entertaining, very funny and actually rather sweet in places.

I missed bits due to running off to make tea during commercial breaks, except th breaks turned out to be too short for that as the show was rather late.

Am I the only person to complain about commercial breaks being too short. I've never particularly disliked commercial breaks actually. Give a bit of time to visit the loo, get a cuppa and digest what I've seen a bit before the next instalment. The exception was my time in Canada and the States where the breaks feature way too often.

[Keef Monkey]

Watched Insurgent which was serviceable enough as a throwaway adventure thingy to pass a Saturday night, and I found myself getting quite into it despite knowing it was all a bit naff really. That review also applies to Divergent and I'm assuming will apply to the rest of the series.

[Spikes]

Saw a couple of crackers over the weekend; the glorious Hail Caesar!, and for cineaste's everywhere Hitchcock/Truffaut.

[Satanist]

Really want to see Hail Caesar but don't know when I'll get the chance.

Watched Southbound at the weekend due to a review on this thread and quite enjoyed it for what it was. I'm a big fan of the 70's horror portmanteau films and this hit the spot.

Also watched Krampus which seems to be going for a Gremlins vibe but doesn't quite reach the same levels of comedy or scares but was just ok.

[von Boom]

Watched Dredd again over the weekend!

Still a bloody good film! 

What to you mean STILL?!

[Tiplodocus]

Conan the Barbarian
Inspired by reading Drums beyond the Black River and then some Barry Smith and Roy Thomas comics, I dug this out. Oh and Seven Samurai reminded me of it.

It really is great even if only 50% Conan
Arnold is superb except when he speaks or performs an action that normal people have no trouble with like walking or nodding their head.

The fights are short and brutal. The only posing is done before as taunts or after as victory salutes.

The dialogue is minimal but the score is magnificent. In fact probably my favourite thing in the movie.

[I, Cosh]

Like most everyone else on this forum, the one thing I knew for sure about John Cassavetes before watching his first film - Shadows - was that he was dead. It's an episodic, largely improvised piece centred around a couple of jazz dudes, their hot sister and the assorted characters that come into their orbit. While rooted firmly in its time, late fifties, it seems daringly progressive in the way it handles topics like sex and race. Of course, it's always difficult to tell if that's really the case or just projection of an assumed view of the past. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff about contemporary racial politics which went over my head.

Whether it's the improvisation or the editing, there are some quite jarring shifts whenever key plot beats are introduced but, by and large, the performances are relaxed and naturalistic. There's an easygoing charm to the gigging and barhopping scenes, as well as some genuine laughs, which conjures up the same mixture of frustration, dissolution and boredom leading to some bad decisions that you get in everything from Do Tha Right Thing to Trainspotting.

Good stuff. This was the first night of a Cassavetes season so hopefully I'll manage to catch a few more.

[I, Cosh]

Ivan Drago! Robocop! Black Dynamite! Hellboy! Buckaroo Banzai! And, er, Tony Jaa. Being discriminating aesthetes to a Squaxx I feel quite certain that the prospect of a single film with such a cast existing has every one of you frothing at the mouth in anticipation.

Sadly, Skin Trade is only a watchable low-rent action film but it feels like it should've been a lot better. Apparently the plot about people trafficking was something of a passion project for Dolph Lundgren. It does at least show a bit more sensitivity to the issue than, say, Taken but this also means that Perlman's villain is played fairly straight and there is a dearth of colourful henchmen to go up against our heroes.

What you do get is a series of calamitous misunderstandings leading to various combinations of Dolph, Jaa and Michael Jai White going up against each other before settling their differences and taking on the common enemy. I really like latter-day Lundgren in this kind of thing. The increasingly grizzled features only help him retain a believably imposing presence and the second time he takes on Jaa is probably the highlight of the film. Dolph soaking up the quick kicks and elbows while looking for an opening to smash the little man around is the first thing I think of when someone mentions "the magic of cinema."

SPL2: A Time For Consequences - Actually the first proper Tony Jaa movie I've seen (other than the last Fast & Furious), my main takeaway was that he really, really liked elbowing people in the head. He does it a thousand times! The fight scenes are incredibly elaborate in this, but nowhere near as readable as something like The Raid, loads of fast cuts spoiling the view of the action. ...

From what you've said it sounds like this is effectively a remake of first one but with everything not as good! Still with this and Skin Trade it looks like Tony Jaa has maybe gotten over the problems he had and is ready to get back in the game.

If you haven't, you should really check out Ong Bak. It wont have the same impact as The Raid but both films gave me the same sensation on first viewing of seeing both an awesome new martial artist and a style of fighting I wasn't used to getting top billing. You're right though: elbowing people in the head is about the only thing he likes better than kneeing them in the face.