Last movie watched...

[The Legendary Shark]

The two Popes. An absolute masterclass by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, by turns funny, thought-provoking, and moving. I am not religious at all but I wholeheartedly recommend this film.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Evil Dead Rises - I didn't get on with this unfortunately, I thought it took far to long to get going, the characters were quite unsympathetic, and it kept stopping and starting, there'd be one great scene but then a long tedious moment. The internal logic seemed flawed to (why some come back to life almost instantly while others took ages was really odd) and I found myself bored a lot of the time, and really missed the chaotic madness of the Raimi movies.

[The Legendary Shark]

Another thumbs down for Evil Dead Rise. Evil Dead Dies, more like.

[Hawkmumbler]

LOCAL HERO

Probably my 8th or so rewatch at this point, on a loooovely 35mm print no less.
Not a lot more to say about this one really, is there? Just about perfect, still remains the only movie that actually makes me cry (laugh, go on, I dare you, but there is never a dry eye when those credits roll).

That's cinema magic, baby.

[pictsy]

I finally got around to watching Midsommar.  Well half of it.

This might be controversial, because I've only heard good things about this film, but oh my god is this film a boring pile of shite.  My initial reaction was "oh, this is high-brow hostel".  It may have been, I don't know, I didn't get to the actual horror.  I was too irritated by the arsehole characters and their tedious bullshit.  I'm not fond of the pagan cult bullshit, either.

It would have been better if it were shorter and faster paced, had charismatic and compelling characters or both.

I have sat all the way through utter detestable garbage that I despise, so I think it's pretty damning to a film if I turn it off half way through because I don't think it's worth finishing it.

Nevertheless, I can see why other people might enjoy it.

[JohnW]

I finally got around to watching Midsommar. 

I watched it with an open mind (or possibly an empty mind – I forget) and thought it time agreeably spent.
Anyway, I had just discovered Florence Pugh and this had Florence Pugh in it, never mind that her character was one of the more unsympathetic characters in a bunch of unsympathetic characters.
I can understand the hate for this film. It's too damn long and there's no one in it that anyone would like. I have lost patience with, and walked away from better movies in my time.
On the plus side however, there's an actual honest-to-god blood eagle sacrifice in there, and there's Florence's dreamy smile and mad floral outfit at the end.

[rogue69]

Just seen probably the worst movie ever Queen Kong loosely based on King Kong, staring Robin Askwith & Rula Lenska
The film switches the traditional roles of females and males and reverses the sexes of the original cast of King Kong. The main character Ray Fay plays the damsel in distress, which tends to usually be played by women. He is kidnapped by film director Luce Habit to star in her new African jungle movie. He then finds himself the attraction of an amorous giant female gorilla that pursues him across London.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Just seen probably the worst movie ever Queen Kong loosely based on King Kong, staring Robin Askwith & Rula Lenska
The film switches the traditional roles of females and males and reverses the sexes of the original cast of King Kong. The main character Ray Fay plays the damsel in distress, which tends to usually be played by women. He is kidnapped by film director Luce Habit to star in her new African jungle movie. He then finds himself the attraction of an amorous giant female gorilla that pursues him across London.

That does sound awful but I've got an urge to watch it now, I do have a fondness for really bad movies, especially if they're set in London as I like to see how the city has changed over the years.

The Super Bros. Movie (2023) - I feel all a bit embarrassed writing this, but I really liked the movie. It's bright and colourful and often quite beautifully designed, and moves at a great pace. I could understand someone hating it, I really could, but it was what I was in the mood for yesterday, a turn off your brain and just smile at the pretty pictures kind of movie, and at the very least I think it's better than the first attempt (which I did actually find quite interesting, but it's a terrible adaptation of the games!).

[Hawkmumbler]

I love kaiju movies. I love bad kaiju movies.

But Queen Kong is a bad kaiju COMEDY movie trying to flaunt it's questionable Python adjacent credentials*.

It's fucking unwatchable.

*Director Frank Agraman occasionally claims to have worked as second line producer on Life of Brian, something that has never been verified.

[rogue69]

You can see why RKO got it's release stopped, it only got limited releases in Italy & Germany plus a Japanese release in 1998 which was redubbed by Japanese comedians where it now has a cult following

[Barrington Boots]

The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Not seen this for decades and I never realised as a youngster how blatant a ripoff of Conan this was. In fact, it's more faithful to Howard's Conan in many ways than the Arnie Conan film. Change the main character a little and lose the opening backstory (whcih has nothing to do with the rest of the film and isn't referenced again) and you've got a great Conan film right here.

I was concerned this would be a deeply problematic watch nowdays like Deathstalker is, and yes, it does include those staples of 80s films - an attempted sexual assault, an 80s hero who is a bit of a dickhead and a weirdly placed bit of extreme violence near the end. But it's a very watchable film, despite the pacing and tone being all over the place: veering from horror to serious to Romancing the Stone-esque action comedy. Really enjoyed it for what it was. Some great special effects too (and some terrible ones)

I also watched Prisoners of the Lost Universe. This was made by Terry Marcel who did Hawk the Slayer and reuses several of the same actors, props and sound effects. This film is dire. The leads really suck and the film also sucks. Best thing about it is John Saxon, hamming it up like a loon.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

The Boogeyman (2023) - Oof this was bad. Apparently its based on a 1973 Stephen King story but they've taken out the twists and the thing that made it of any interest, and now it's a bog standard horror film with every cliche going, a tedious affair that if I hadn't been with a friend i would have walked out half way through, and not missed anything of any value either.

On the plus side I'm off to see the Spider-Man Spiderverse sequel in about half an hour (I'm lucky that I live within walking distance of the cinema) and am really looking forward to that!

[Hawkmumbler]

ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE

I was genuinely concerned that, after a largely refreshing and for the most part self contained romp the first time around when INTO dropped, that the sequel would devolve into a stream of fan wanking turned up to the highest feasible setting without the entire plot evaporating around it.

Delighted to announce I was only somewhat justified in my concerns, for though it absolutely falls into that most odious of contemporary narrative trends of meta-naval gazing-within-meta-narratives it's undeniably one of the more tactful examples of the type. All the jokes that outstay there welcome are entirely in the service of character building, and without a word of sarcasm I do love these characters.
Lord and Miller have always had a knack for making animated, larger than life characters work on a more intimate level and this does not fail to live up to that legacy.
I want to see more of Miles, Gwen, Hobie and co. as these are arguably some of the most endearing cape types i've seen in a long time, it's fun just seeing them bounce off one another.

I just wish it was in service of a more satisfying, holistic work. For as it stands in stark contrast to the first entry in the series ACROSS feels like a half dozen set up vignettes (which, really, it is) for a sequel that honestly just makes me wish we got a 3-5 hour animated epic one-and-done.

That is, perhaps, a me issue admittedly.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

I get where you're coming from storywise, but I absolutely loved this, visually it's astonishing, I genuinely don't know how the studios are going to respond but if the keep on trotting out cgi films like the new Pixar film (Elemental), it's going to look embarrassingly weak. Indeed if they're not going to pull out all the stop to compete I'd even prefer a return to traditional animation, during the pandemic I watched every Disney film which got a cinematic release and enjoyed the majority of them a great deal (except Bambi, sheesh is that a dull film!) and loved the animation to nearly all of the films.

The Flash (2023) - This is going to be quite spoiler-y, (and I can't find a way to spoiler the text), so if you wish to see this I'd suggest looking away now. So i saw this the day after Spider-Verse which was probably a mistake, but I found Ezra Miller's portrayal of both lead characters to be all but unbearable, and though Michael Keaton was great they didn't really give him any memorable dialogue at all. It's frustrating as the opening sequence, the baby shower, was fantastic, as was Wonder Woman's cameo, but from that point it became miserable for far too long as Barry whined about his dead mother and the Russian rescue segment was poorly lit and badly orchestrated. Once the ending arrived I found myself finally enjoying the film, but then some shockingly shoddy cgi turned up (I mean, was that really the best way they could get Christopher Reeve in to the film?) and by the end I had no interest in whether or not their was a post credits scene, and left the second the credits appeared.

[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.