Last movie watched...

[Hawkmumbler]

Spider-Man 23: The one with Sherlock

T'was fine. Utterly, entirely disposable but I didn't want to leave my mortal form every ten minutes so by corporate cape movie standards that gets it a pass.

[Mister Pops]

Ok, so you've claimed you're obliged to watch this shite for work*. Fair enough, but you're not obliged to whinge about it here. We get it. Marvel/Disney is beneath you. Maybe tell the people you think are forcing you to watch this drivel instead. Maybe then they'll stop making you watch it, when you call them out on their vapid man-baby fantasies.

The French Dispatch

I like Wes Anderson. While it could be said he's all style over substance, I think his style is the substance.

But** sections of this were a wee bit too wanky and up its own arse, and tarnished the fun parts.

Tilda Swinton is fabulous as always.

*I'm dubious that you couldn't just wing it from memes and reviews
**I like big buts and I cannot lie

[Funt Solo]

The Wes Anderson Style Explained — The Complete Director's Guide to Wes Anderson's Aesthetic

[Radbacker]

Android/Mother, nice little character Sci-fi, wants to be Children of Men but couldn’t even come close.  Still did enjoy it if enjoy is the correct term to use, had a depressing af ending though.  Worth a watch if you don’t mind getting depressed

CU Radbacker

[Hawkmumbler]

Ok, so you've claimed you're obliged to watch this shite for work*. Fair enough, but you're not obliged to whinge about it here. We get it. Marvel/Disney is beneath you. Maybe tell the people you think are forcing you to watch this drivel instead. Maybe then they'll stop making you watch it, when you call them out on their vapid man-baby fantasies.

The inverse is also true.

Also its just funny.

LAMB

This was an odd one, very heavy handed with its metaphor to the point of self satire wrapped up in an inverted rape-revenge plot with a personification of the great god Pan walking about but oft felt somewhat half baked in its melancholy, like the 'is this about learning to live with parental grief' utterly usurped everything else about the character dynamic between the only three characters in the whole thing. An interesting, if not whole successful, spin on the folk genre.

[milstar]

I like Wes Anderson. While it could be said he's all style over substance, I think his style is the substance.

His Isle of Dogs was damn good anime. Poignant, yet darkly funny.

[Link Prime]

but you're not obliged to whinge about it here.

Au contraire.

I had an emergency request baby-sitting duty for a bunch of teens / pre-teens on Friday night last, and treated those little shits to their very first viewing of Die Hard.
Only one of the four actually enjoyed it.
I hid my disappointment behind a Harry Ellis style grin of 80's confidence.

[Colin YNWA]

Hara-Kiri - Death of a Samurai

Finished this up last night and its a great movie. I hadn't realised this 2011 film was a remake of a classic from the early 60s and I really must track that down.

Its a dark, tragic tale the hypocrasy of honour in the wrong hands. It basically a revenge story, but its telling defies the cliche (well most of them) of that commonly used theme and its frankly superbly made in all departments.

On Amazon now so if you have it and are feeling like you can handle clawing misery check it out.

[milstar]

The Great Wall

I realised now how I was misled about the film's content, my mind racing back to the period The Great Wall got released in the theatres. Namely, Matt Damon's character that someone claimed is Chinese (he isn't). Or that white features a "white saviour" trope (it doesn't). But considering this is primarily American production, such criticisms are bonkers.  Plus, I really didn't expect four-legged hounds from hell too, but alas... As it is, the film has very little to do with historical accuracy. Western man in the 10th century China rofl! But I was entertained. The movie doesn't fail on delivering mesmerizing visuals, impeccable production, and costume designs, and CGI is stellar. Plus, the film that doesn't bore with unnecessary long running time so casual in Hollywood epic escapades is okay in my book. The only problem I had was with the by-the-book plot, and the film pulls absolutely nothing of innovative storytelling. Countless times have seen, run of the mill cliche - a stranger in a foreign land, who finds more than he could have bargained for, helps the local population against an impending enemy, meets a girl, they proceed to have a love-hate relationship, but ultimately grow to admire each other (though they do not get together at the end). But I guess these criticisms are irrelevant now.
Time well spent!

[rogue69]

Resident Evil welcome to Racoon City

This is the new reboot so forget about the Milla Jovovich films this version is a lot darker and follows the games more closely. This is a good opening film for the new franchise and introduces a lot of the key characters from the games. Overall a good zombie movie

[Tiplodocus]

The Great Wall
 Or that white features a "white saviour" trope (it doesn't).
...
 a stranger in a foreign land...helps the local population against an impending enemy

I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements but it's Christmas and I genuinely can't remember much about the movie so I'll assume that it somehow cleverly subverts the trope that seems inherent from the set-up

[Tiplodocus]

LIFE OF PI
Been meaning to catch this for a while and it's in Disney/Starz.
My goodness it's gorgeous to look at, special effects that aren't there to be showy but to tell a story but they end up being showy anyway.
I went in blind so when the opening looks like it's a writer taking on a Noah's ark story I was prepared to be disappointed but by the end, the animals and the writer thing becomes clear,  and I was completely on board. How does something so seemingly whimsical also end up being so tense? Is it deep? Probably not but it does make you ask yourself some questions about a range of things plus the time flew by and I ended with a big grin on my stuffed face.

[Colin YNWA]

Well one of the first things I watched with my Disney+ sub was Black Hole a film I've not seen for years, like many years. Possibly since I first saw it, maybe on telly in the 80s? Not sure. Anyway even though I know its rep isn't that great its always kinda lingered in the back of my mind and been something I've long wanted to return to...

... well at least I've got that out my system!

... Well that might not be fair. At its heart its a very good film. Its just the execution is pretty poor. The characters are flat and cliche, the design and effects while often wonderful are also often horribly dated. The music at times swells, at times seems utterly out of place and poorly used. The script is hammy and that's not helped by mixed performances. There are some very exciting sequences, but the direction makes them all feel isolated and they don't hang together.

Such a shame as it could have been so good.

Look to this day I'm baffled as to why anyone thought we needed a remake of Robocop, or Total Recall but why someone hasn't looked at this and thought - christ we can do this film better, we can do the film this should be and justice to the central idea and plot.

AND THE ENDING, the one thing they can't change is the ending. That was quite something. If they nail the remake. And capture the ending there's one hell - literally - of a sequel as Maximillian Reinhardt escape their hellscape and launch into Heaven - I mean it would go very different places but christ I want to see the sequel to this movie... just want the movie to be done better first!

[broodblik]

The Matrix Resurrections - well this re-image re-make or whatever you want to call it was simply put a poor imitation of the real deal. This move very much like Star Wars: The Force Awakens does not know what it want to be so it try to redone the original (in SW case a New Hope) but with uninteresting and bring characters and plots. Both these are good looking but still very weak entries in the franchise and in the case of Matrix it did not need a new sequel.

[Hawkmumbler]

THE MATRIX RESSURECTIONS

Owns. The Wachowski sisters can fuck.