Last movie watched...

[Greg M.]

Vaguely remember it having something to do with insects or vultures or a head wound or...something.

That's the film, all right. Bastard alien hornets with stabby proboscises. And yes, a horrific head wound...

[radiator]

Watched What We Do in the Shadows last night.

It's every bit as great as I hoped it would be. A really funny, instantly quotable blend of horror and comedy that earns its place alongside Shaun of the Dead and An American Werewolf in London.

5/5

[JamesC]

Ant Man

Fun, funny and fast paced. Really enjoyed it. Particularly liked Michael Douglass's gnarly old Hank Pym and Evangeline Lily as the bitter, conflicted but still likeable daughter.

[jacob g]

I just saw "Copenhagen" and "Jurassic World". "Copenhagen", nothing special but watchable little drama with background romance and familly issues. "Jurassic World" was a mess... damn, I had more fun on Terminator: Genysis which for me was the worst fanservice Hollywood ever sold to audience.

[JamesC]

The Dark Knight Rises.

It just goes on and on! I was losing the will to live by the end of it.
It's over long, over serious and generally a bit of a mess.
I don't think I'll want to watch it again.

[Professor Bear]

As with Where The Wild Things Are, I think the drab greys and melancholy atmosphere of Dark Knight Rises can only really be appreciated by its target audience of children.  As adults, we more readily embrace things that are quirky or offbeat, but kids like their shit to be straightforward.

Spy is mostly contrived and not very funny, but when it ditches the clunky mechanics of what we've seen a million times before in favor of unabashed vulgarity, it's much more enjoyable.  Rose Byrne is great as a classless villainess, while Jason Statham does his usual comedy turn as an unconvincing action man playing a cockney CIA agent and no that is never explained but if Piper Perabo can be a CIA agent clearly anyone can.

[Dark Jimbo]

Went to a free cinema screening of Spielberg's Duel. Pleased to find that it was just as good as I'd remembered it since my first viewing many years ago; even knowing roughly what happened it remains tense as hell. That truck should be talked about as one of the all-time great movie villians.

[DaveGYNWA]

Went to a free cinema screening of Spielberg's Duel. Pleased to find that it was just as good as I'd remembered it since my first viewing many years ago; even knowing roughly what happened it remains tense as hell. That truck should be talked about as one of the all-time great movie villians.

Love that film - absolutely love it. Lost count of how many times I've seen it - and I've never seen it on a big screen

[HdE]

Appleseed Alpha.

Oh god... why did I do this to myself?

One of my favourite comic books ever, having been blessed with a decent anime OVA in the late '80s and a couple of really good CG movies in the 2000s, gets reduced to THIS?

It looks amazing. But the story is so unbearably bland and disappointing. I just don't get it... why go to all that effort to produce something so visually stunning... and waste it on a plot that could service a Steven Seagal movie?

WHY?!?!??

(Note: Actually worse because this is the second time I've seen it.  So when I say 'why did I do this to myself?' I REALLY know I have only myself to blame.)

[JamesC]

The Inbetweeners 2:

It was okay but you could tell everyone was just trying to milk the last remnants of cash from the series before they got too old. Worth a watch if it comes on telly I suppose.

The Rise:

A decent British crime/revenge thriller set in a grotty northern town. Good performances and an enjoyable story but not quite as clever as it wanted to be.

Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For:

Much better than I thought it would be and I enjoyed it more than the first one. Possibly because I was less familiar with the stories this time around. I read A Dame to Kill For back in the 90s but I wasn't familiar with the Joseph Gordon Levitt story or the Nancy revenge thing.

[I, Cosh]

Incredibly, I had never seen Blue Velvet until last night. I don't suppose there's much point going on at length about something everyone else has already seen a million times, but I don't see why that should stop me. I enjoyed it a lot and will certainly be rewatching it soon. The gawky awkwardness of both MacLachlan and Dern was pretty endearing and it's interesting to see a lot of those Lynch signatures like the big club singer setpiece when they were fresh.

The thing that struck me the most was how straightforward it all is. Unlike much of his later work, there is a very simple – if unlikely – plot driving the narrative forward and the strangeness derives from the characters met along the way rather than tricksy games.

Probably not as good as Wild at Heart but still a good one.

[Mardroid]

Kingsman the Secret Service - the main character's accent and style of talking got on my nerves a bit. I'm a Londoner too (okay, a South East suburban Londoner but I've heard kids talking that way for real) from a working class background but this particular style of talking seems to be a new thing the kids have invented since my time. For realz. Ugh.

It was a fun romp, though. Incredibly violent in places, although in a humourous way with very little actual blood.

American Sniper

Meandering but thought provoking . Learning it was based on a true story was a little [spoiler]shocking and depressing.[/spoiler]

Not quite my cup of tea, but it did what it set out to do well.

Some of the American patriotic macho "booyah" got on my nerves a bit, but then they counterbalanced that by showing glimpses of the other side.

A worthwhile film to watch, certainly. I much preferred Kingsman but then again its basically a live action cartoon. American Sniper is a slice of reality, (with some dramatic licence of course) and it doesn't taste all that nice. But it really isn't supposed to.

[W. R. Logan]

Although a huge chunk of American Sniper, like the battle with the enemy sniper never happened.

[JamesC]

(Half of) Yojimbo

I knew this film was well loved and that it was the basis for A Fistful of Dollars so I was looking forward to watching it. I ended up turning it off halfway through. Not that it was bad exactly, it just wasn't what I was expecting and it didn't draw me in.
I was surprised by the silly, comedic tone of it. From the music, to the acting, to the bloke with the stick on eyebrows.
Dollars has some comedic moments too, but it never comes across as silly - probably because of Clint's stoic performance and the soundtrack.

I'll happily stick to Clint in future. I've been told in the past that this film is 'much better' than A Fistful of Dollars. Horses for courses I guess.
I'm now curious as to whether Seven Samurai also has this comedic tone, another film I've always meant to give some time to, being a big fan of the Magnificent Seven (and Battle Beyond the Stars of course).

[I, Cosh]

I'm now curious as to whether Seven Samurai also has this comedic tone, another film I've always meant to give some time to, being a big fan of the Magnificent Seven (and Battle Beyond the Stars of course).

It doesn't. Mifune's character's buffoonishness is played a bit for laughs at the start but that's about it.

Then again, I don't remember Yojimbo being particularly silly. Or "much better" than A Fistful of Dollars. So who knows.