Last movie watched...

[broodblik]

Your summary Badly is spot on about The Flash. The best scene was by far the baby-shower. What I also disliked was the fact that Barry Allen is always unsure about himself. The cgi was quite poor in the movie. One of the strangest choice in the movie was to make Barry's family is Italian. I did like the different cameos in the movie as well.

[Barrington Boots]

Late to the party on PREY - I was put off by the trailer for it when it came out, mainly due to a rubbish CGI bear. After general good reviews and a friends urging I watched it last week.
The start of the film is not very interesting. It looks beautiful, apart from the CGI animals which are all terrible and immersion breaking: if you can't do a good CGI bird, maybe don't put one in the film? The concept is great but as much as I wanted to root for the main character I found them annoying, the plot meandering, and the film lacking atmosphere.
And then.. at some point I became super invested and started hugely enjoying it. The protagonist went from acting foolishly to being courageous and inventive and I was totally behind them and their journey. The film was tight, tense and atmospheric. The Predator looked great too - I liked the way it moved, more animalistic and hunched, and the way it adapted its fighting methodology to match the combat style whatever it was fighting.
I was cynical we could get another decent Predator film but very glad to be proved wrong.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Your summary Badly is spot on about The Flash. The best scene was by far the baby-shower. What I also disliked was the fact that Barry Allen is always unsure about himself. The cgi was quite poor in the movie. One of the strangest choice in the movie was to make Barry's family is Italian. I did like the different cameos in the movie as well.

I thought that was an odd decision about Barry's lack of confidence, it kind of made sense in the Justice League movie as he was relatively new to superhero antics, but years have passed now and I couldn't understand why he acted that way. The same applies with young Barry, who seemed weirdly stupid and I don't know why that was.

[Jim_Campbell]

Extraction 2 (Netflix)

I quite enjoyed the first Extraction movie — it was a brisk, efficient thriller with some very well-staged action set-pieces.

I imagine the intention of the sequel was to 'turn it up to eleven'... which they certainly did, but at the expense of making a film that was actually watchable.

Full disclosure: we bailed out after thirty minutes. Maybe the remaining hour-and-a-half is really good, but we'd had enough.

It's basically noise. After a brief catch-up from the end of the first movie, and a laughable montage sequence in which Hemsworth's character (whose name I can't even remember) goes from hobbling, near-death-experience-recoveree to fighting fit killing machine by virtue of chopping some logs, it's into the action.

And, yes, there's plenty of it — it's unrelenting. People get shot, stabbed, blown up, murdered with a variety of garden implements... but I couldn't discern any reason why I was supposed to give a single, solitary shit about any of it.

The directorial obsession with faking long takes and continuous shots was, I suppose, intended to give the audience the impression of being right in amongst the action. The actual effect was both exhausting and amazingly dull — it felt exactly like watching someone else playing a third-person shooter on their XBox. There was little to no sense of peril, increasingly fearsome weaponry appears almost out of nowhere, many cars, helicopters and motorcycles are reduced to burning wreckage...

...And it manages to be terribly, terribly boring.

Which is a shame, because I wanted to like it.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood - I was a big fan of Tarantino from Reservoir Dogs through to Kill Bill Vol. 1, but I struggled with Vol,2, and haven't enjoyed anything since. But I was intrigued by this, the performances are strong, the dialogue isn't deliberately convoluted speech, and it's very well shot. I've still a lot of questions about it, and what Tarantino was trying to do with the ending, but despite that it's his best film in  years for me.

[Colin YNWA]

Gremlins 2 not really given this much thought since righting it off as another terrible sequel back in the day (I know I saw it in the cinema and maybe once more on video after that) and way watched it again tonight and by George its really rather good fun.

I mean its not as good as the first, few are, but there is no denying its funny, rollocks along and has a sadly amusing Trump parody that is interesting to see.

Yeah glad I revisited it!

[Dark Jimbo]

Extraction 2 (Netflix)

I quite enjoyed the first Extraction movie — it was a brisk, efficient thriller with some very well-staged action set-pieces.

I imagine the intention of the sequel was to 'turn it up to eleven'... which they certainly did, but at the expense of making a film that was actually watchable.

Yep. My partner turned to me early on and said almost exactly the same as you - 'It feels like watching someone play a videogame.' We watched to the end, and if it doesn't necessarily get any better, it at least becomes a little more coherent as they leave the train/helicopter battles behind for more smaller stakes stuff. On the whole it's just hard to engage with, really - a lot of noise and nonsense, soon forgotten. Which is a shame, because I also liked the first one.

Gremlins 2... I mean its not as good as the first, few are, but there is no denying its funny, rollocks along and has a sadly amusing Trump parody that is interesting to see.

It's superb stuff, with lots of nice nods and callbacks to the first one. Name me another film that stars Christopher Lee, Hulk Hogan, and Daffy Duck!

[GoGilesGo]

Gremlins 2

I mean its not as good as the first, few are, but there is no denying its funny, rollocks along and has a sadly amusing Trump parody that is interesting to see.

On the Films That Made Me podcast director Joe Dante, one of the two co-hosts, quite regularly states how he thinks Gremlins 2 is the better film of the two. Combination of the freedom he was allowed while making it and the meta theatrical elements he used throughout.

[Angry Vince]

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood - I was a big fan of Tarantino from Reservoir Dogs through to Kill Bill Vol. 1, but I struggled with Vol,2, and haven't enjoyed anything since. But I was intrigued by this, the performances are strong, the dialogue isn't deliberately convoluted speech, and it's very well shot. I've still a lot of questions about it, and what Tarantino was trying to do with the ending, but despite that it's his best film in  years for me.

I bailed on my first viewing of this - Quentin Tarantino's obsession with feet <shudders>

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood - I was a big fan of Tarantino from Reservoir Dogs through to Kill Bill Vol. 1, but I struggled with Vol,2, and haven't enjoyed anything since. But I was intrigued by this, the performances are strong, the dialogue isn't deliberately convoluted speech, and it's very well shot. I've still a lot of questions about it, and what Tarantino was trying to do with the ending, but despite that it's his best film in  years for me.

I bailed on my first viewing of this - Quentin Tarantino's obsession with feet <shudders>

I can sympathise with that, the main feet scene in this is so over the top that I think Tarantino's just winding up the audience, but it still made me sigh out loud and wish he didn't do such things.

Sisu (2022) - John Wick / Nobody / Oldboy except it's Finland and World War II. This starts strongly and there's a great bit in the third chapter that made me chuckle, but about half way through the film runs out of steam, it continues to be violent but in a surprisingly uninspired manner. A shame, this had potential, but it squandered it before taking a big s*** on top of it. 5.7/10

[The Legendary Shark]

Fallen (1989). Been a while since I last watched this but it's still great. One of Denzel's best films, maybe even his very best.

[The Legendary Shark]

Sisu. This is Die Hard meets Fury in Finland and, despite piling more hurt on the hero than any human being could possibly survive is, nevertheless, enjoyable if you can suspend your disbelief that high. Then again, I guess that's what films like this are all about, in which case Sisu nails it.

I think there may also be a spin-off film following the fortunes of the women screaming out to be made. I'd definitely watch that!

[JohnW]

Mission Impossible: I've already forgotten what it's called, Part One
There's this thing that was on this submarine and Tom Cruise has to get the thing or it'll be The End Of The World but a pretty lady steals the thing so she can sell it to this other pretty lady who's a baddie, and Tom Cruise and the first pretty lady (who's not a baddie) are in this car and they get chased really really fast through tourist destinations by sexy-psycho-girl in a big armoured van, and then later Tom Cruise has to run really really fast so he can rescue a different pretty lady, and then he has to drive a motorbike really really fast so he can stop the baddies.
And there's a fight!
There's a fight on the roof of a train and the train his going really really fast and Tom Cruise has a fight with this other baddie (only this is a different baddie and not the sexy-psycho-girl in a big armoured van even though she's on the train as well, only not in her big armoured van because you can't have a big armoured van on a train because that would be impossible) and Tom Cruise has to beat the baddie or it'll be The End Of The World.

This film is 2 hours and 43 minutes long.

Things to take away from this film:
Pretty ladies are nice to look at.
Italians are also nice to look at, but can't be trusted.
Nothing can stop Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise has lovely teeth.

[Link Prime]

The Possession (1981).
Difficult to get hold of for a justifiable price on DVD / BD, but if you fancy giving this head-trip a watch, a very decent version has just been added to Prime UK.

[Barrington Boots]

Magnificent Seven marathon (not the 2016 one)

The second film is the worst by a long way.