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[milstar]

The Wachowski sisters can fuck.

Only one of them.

13 Hours

I rate every military, set in the Middle East movie to Ridley Scott's stellar Black Hawk Down. Rigid rule, but absolute. 13 Hours delivers some of the goods, but fails to reach Sir Rid's masterpiece.
Coming from Michael Bay (the man probably born to do this film), the film is surprisingly dark and mature. But not that it'd matter at the end. Because it's another mindless Hollywood jingoistic crap, this one rooted in real events. It even starta with real life footage of civil unrest in Lybia. I don't know how much of it was truthful, but I don't even care. I don't plan to go on politics rant, so I'll leave all political aspects out if this. About the film, Michael Bay doesn't fail to deliver another high adrenaline actioner (juvenile, pyrotechnics, tons of squibs), but this time he opted I guess for documentaristic approach. Meaning heavy use of hand-held camera set-ups and blink or you'll miss it editing, which was the source of constant annoyance in The Bourne Supremacy (or was it Ultimatum?). Messy it looks, the handling of the story wasn't much better. For the first hour, I had very issues following the story as scenes are jumbled together without any purpose save to move to the gunfight spectacle. The film also never really grabs onto a single soldier, except usual family bits crap. At the end, it didn't matter to me who was who who did what. Which is too bad, because some actors were really good. John Krasinski especially. One thing the film definitely has to be complimented on. At the end are presented images of real life guys the film is based on and I gotta say, the physical similarities are striking. Almost clone-like.

[Rara Avis]

Caught Lamb over the Xmas break and if you are into your dark Scandi (well Icelandic) cinema this one is going to be right up your street. 10/10 from me - absolutely loved it.

Also watched Titane, a new French movie which is equally bizarre but not as gripping. I'm still trying to figure out what it's about - humans relationship with technology or the role of women in society; as either sexual objects or desexualised mother .

[broodblik]

Spider-Man: No Way Home a super enjoyable movie. This was great fun, action, laughs, over-the-top scenes and it just worked. This is how you do a superhero movie.

[Barrington Boots]

This week I was invited round for a triple bill of back to back fighting movies. Hoping for something like Ong Bak, what i got was:

Mortal Kombat - the 2021 version. I remember the trailers looking good for this but it being panned by the critics and everyone I knew. Character design was on the whole great and there were some terrific set pieces but this was not an interesting watch, not helped by the decision to include a bland character made up for the film and make him the main character. Kano was excellent, glad to see he's still Australian after the mighty Trevor Goddard's portrayal in 1995.
GI Joe Origins: Snake Eyes - in which famously silent and deadly ninja Snake Eyes is neither silent nor deadly. Almost completely pants, although I did like the Baroness (who was needlessly included) but hated the shaky camera work and another bland lead made this a proper duffer.
Shang Chi was the finale and the best, mainly for having interesting and engaging characters and a nuanced villain instead of moody hard men throughout. The plot was complete nonsense and kind of dropped off a cliff midway but I did like the Dragon. Also had the best fight scenes of the three when the CGI calmed down a bit.

I wouldn't watch any of these again!

[Colin YNWA]

The Omen

Still creepy as hell and an effective horror. I'm sure we've all seen it and not sure there's much else to say. Good performances pretty much all round, which really does almost all the heavy lifting. Then you add the score on top of that and that elevates it to a whole different level. It allows it to get away with some bits that otherwise might be a who, what, how moments, but you are carried through the building tension by the deceptively brisk pace and tight direction. Its just a good horror and I fully remember quite why it should never have been the second only proper horror film I saw as a kid and why so much of it is imprinted on my brain.

Which makes me wonder why when it was first released it took a pretty significent critical beating. It was thought to be be daft. Are we just more tolerant of daft these days? Have movies just piled on the daft so much over the years that I don't even see this as daft, particularly? Was it in the 70s there was much more sensitivity to the themes of an anti-christ coming and that made folks shierk it more than they otherwise might, as they were just uncomfortable with it? Or did I just allow the direction, performances and music roll me along and ignore the daft.

Is this still a daft movie. If it is I kinda missed it...

...now onto Omen 2 which I suspect I will find a bit daft, but also suspect I will enjoy as well...

[paddykafka]

Fun Fact: About ten years ago, a knock on the front door of the house in which my flat is, was answered by the chap in the flat beside me. From what I could hear, two guys from either the Mormons or Jehovas' Witnesses - I can't recall which - were at the door, talking about God and Jesus etc.

I immediately rushed to my stereo and put on the soundtrack of The Omen, with volume pumped up. After which, I popped my head out the door of my flat and asked the chap talking to the two lads if he could drop that Ram's skull back into me soon, as I would be needing it for a ritual.

To be fair, the two chaps at the door saw the funny side of this and laughed.

[The Legendary Shark]

I used to get called on occasionally at my old flat and generally used the same old joke...

"Hello, we're Jehovah's Witnesses."

"Gosh, I didn't know He'd been in an accident."

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm sure we've all seen it and not sure there's much else to say.

Except that the David Warner/sheet of plate glass scene remains a fantastic bit of practical FX. :-)

[Hawkmumbler]

David Warner remains fantastic.

Four words nobody can ever argue with.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Rogue One.  Finally.  I didn't want The All-New Boba Show to end, but it did, and I had a craving for more Star Wars so I watched that too.  I liked it anyway, first film I remember seeing in the cinema was The Empire Strikes Back so I'll always get a buzz out of seeing Darth Vader in all his glory.  Also, as an adult man, and I'm no expert on SW-lore, it's nice to see a little plot-hole plugged (So that's why the Death Star had such an obvious weak point!).

[broodblik]

Don’t look up – a dark satire which felt to close for comfort. This a movie about the end of the world and how stupid decisions are made along to way to facilitate that the world will end. I can highly recommend this movie, funny, witty, and yes twisted dark as well. 

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Don’t look up – a dark satire which felt to close for comfort. This a movie about the end of the world and how stupid decisions are made along to way to facilitate that the world will end. I can highly recommend this movie, funny, witty, and yes twisted dark as well.

I enjoyed this, until I was told it's actually about global warming.

[Funt Solo]

Don’t look up – a dark satire which felt to close for comfort. This a movie about the end of the world and how stupid decisions are made along to way to facilitate that the world will end. I can highly recommend this movie, funny, witty, and yes twisted dark as well.

I enjoyed this, until I was told it's actually about global warming.

So, you watched it, enjoyed it, later found out it was an analogy for the governmental and media response to human-induced climate change - and that eliminated your earlier enjoyment? How come?

[Tiplodocus]

It was probably written about Global Warming but equally maps onto the COVID Pandemic.

Watched THE BIG SHORT off the back of my enjoyment of DON'T LOOK UP. There's nothing as funny as a Brontorak in it but it's still worth two hours of your time to get your head round what at the time seemed an impenetrable subject in an entertaining and accessible manner. Full of great performances even down to the single scene people (e.g. Max Greenfield)

[Mister Pops]

Rogue One...I'm no expert on SW-lore, it's nice to see a little plot-hole plugged (So that's why the Death Star had such an obvious weak point!).

I am also no expert in SW-lore, although I do enjoy the fact that wookiepedia exists, but I never considered that a plot hole. I always assumed it was just Imperial arrogance, also it wasn't an obvious weak point. They desperately needed to get the schematics to reveal it, you might have missed that because it was just a throwaway line in the opening scroll of Star Wars. Maybe that's why they made this pointless movie, in case you missed how important the Death Star plans were from that one sentence from Star Wars.

And the entire first act of Star Wars.

So they made a whole movie about a doomsday weapon, where a load of forgettable characters get slaughtered for the big pay-off of a dodgy CGI Carrie Fisher getting a USB stick.

I didn't much care for this movie. Can you tell?

The Darth Vader bit was good though.