What film did you watch last night?

Caporegime
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John Wick 3 - Nonsense/10

Actually, nonsense x 1 gazjilliontyboohickdillyon.

Here is my review of John Wick 3: kablaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

e: On a more serious note, this sums up most of the problems

Admit that John Wick is a Garbage Franchise You Cowards | Scene and Heard: Scene's News Blog (clevescene.com)

Whilst I'm not so bothered by the gratuitous violence as this critic seems to be, I agree with the rest of the points they make. The John Wick franchise is gratuitous violence, but this instalment is not necessarily entertaining. It manages to be quite mind-numbing gratuitous violence.

There's a lot of times where you're thinking, "That was kind of cool the first time but we've seen it 10 times now in the space of a minute." The fight scenes are not great. A lot of the time the martial artists can be seen either putting up no resistance at all, or slowing their movements to a crawl, or deliberately missing Mr Wick. And Wick himself has about three moves, and three moves only. And one of them is a slap, lol.

In truth, most of the film plays like a video game. I actually said to myself, "This is Max Payne the film." Only with a plot that is completely unfathomable. And that's not really a compliment, tbh. Video game logic doesn't make for a great film, unfortunately.

There are unlimited enemies that just run at Wick and he slaps them. It's over an hour of people getting slapped and falling over. It's not really engaging. I found myself laughing at a lot of it.

Bonus (negative) points for the Game of Thrones guy doing the worst possible Italian accent.
 
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Soldato
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Black Widow - 6½/10

Generally a very watchable movie. The fight scenes are great, really well choreographed and the story was reasonable. Slightly odd at the end...

Did I see right, a single shot from a gun took down the whole huge flying red room?
 
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Unhinged: 7/10

Nice short movie that my other half found quite stressful to watch :D

I want expecting the last half to be so intense but you pick up on all the foreshadowing they do in the first half. Nice satisfying movie.


Watched this last night. It was certainly entertaining. The lady doing her makeup in her car got more than she bargained for :D

7/10
 
Man of Honour
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The Tomorrow War

One of the most bafflingly nonsensical films I have ever seen in terms of plot holes and ‘protagonist strategy’, perhaps the most baffling I’ve ever seen? But, the journey as a whole was fun and watchable.

6/10
 

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Soldato
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Bird Box 5/10

I was hoping for some thing along the lines of A Quiet Place but no such luck, what i got instead was 2 hours of tedium with the occasional moment of interest thrown into the mix to keep you watching till the idiotic end, pretty much a snooze fest.

John Wick 3 6/10

I think it's about time Reeves put JW to bed as he's not getting any younger, & he's definately slowing down, the most entertaining part of the movie?, the dogs!, they clearly enjoyed what they were doing & went for it with total commitment, they were like frikkin fur missiles zooming across the screen!. take the dogs out of the equation and it would have to be 5/10, we've been here before & the novelty is wearing awfully thin.
 
Soldato
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Trapeze starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. 6/10, not a bad film.

Burt does a lot of the trapeze work himself, as does Gina Lollobrigida. It's bonkers that there was a time when a major Hollywood star was allowed to take such risks.
 
Soldato
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28 Days Later - showing it's age now, but what a great movie (fancied some zombie action!)

The Corporal in the movie was **** though - proper sterotype of army personnel which was annoying.
 
Caporegime
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John Wick 3 6/10

I think it's about time Reeves put JW to bed as he's not getting any younger, & he's definately slowing down, the most entertaining part of the movie?, the dogs!, they clearly enjoyed what they were doing & went for it with total commitment, they were like frikkin fur missiles zooming across the screen!. take the dogs out of the equation and it would have to be 5/10, we've been here before & the novelty is wearing awfully thin.
A lot of the dog sections were CGI :p Sorry.
 
Soldato
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John Wick 3 - Nonsense/10

Actually, nonsense x 1 gazjilliontyboohickdillyon.

Here is my review of John Wick 3: kablaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

e: On a more serious note, this sums up most of the problems

Admit that John Wick is a Garbage Franchise You Cowards | Scene and Heard: Scene's News Blog (clevescene.com)

Whilst I'm not so bothered by the gratuitous violence as this critic seems to be, I agree with the rest of the points they make. The John Wick franchise is gratuitous violence, but this instalment is not necessarily entertaining. It manages to be quite mind-numbing gratuitous violence.

There's a lot of times where you're thinking, "That was kind of cool the first time but we've seen it 10 times now in the space of a minute." The fight scenes are not great. A lot of the time the martial artists can be seen either putting up no resistance at all, or slowing their movements to a crawl, or deliberately missing Mr Wick. And Wick himself has about three moves, and three moves only. And one of them is a slap, lol.

In truth, most of the film plays like a video game. I actually said to myself, "This is Max Payne the film." Only with a plot that is completely unfathomable. And that's not really a compliment, tbh. Video game logic doesn't make for a great film, unfortunately.

There are unlimited enemies that just run at Wick and he slaps them. It's over an hour of people getting slapped and falling over. It's not really engaging. I found myself laughing at a lot of it.

Bonus (negative) points for the Game of Thrones guy doing the worst possible Italian accent.

That review is spot on and your one word review is perfect!! The John Wick films have achieved some kind of cult status, and I don't understand why. The first film was ok, it did have some amazing fight scenes and it was Keanu's best movie in years. So, I could kind of understand why it was getting rave reviews. However, the second movie was bad and the third movie in the series is beyond ridiculous. No plot, terrible acting and mind numbingly boring fight scene after fight scene with a Keanu Reeves that can barely move.

But, don't worry, John Wick: Chapter 4 is coming next year. I am sure it will be even better than all the rest.
 
Man of Honour
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The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Tommy Lee Jones directs and stars in this modern western. Jones plays Pete who befriends an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who is accidentally shot by a border patrol officer played by Barry Pepper.

One of those films that you watch and enjoy but don't really don't know why. It's fairly simple story with great acting and cinematography, easy to recommend if it pops up on Netflix or Prime. But since it got a decent review, I bought the Blu-ray.

7.5/10
 
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Associate
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I watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood on Netflix.

I enjoyed it overall but I already knew the whole Manson story in detail and also just what an evil little ***** Polanski was/is as well which adds to tension through the whole movie, but if you didn't already know any of that, viewers might be wondering just what the hell is going on.

There's a reference to Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys being friends with Charles Manson, Manson even wrote a song for him, again I'd have to assume most of audience won't know that, Tarantino seems to think everyone knows the intricate real life occurrences backstory which makes it probably a little dull for some viewers. Manson only in the movie for a few seconds despite him being the catalyst for it all.

It still looks great with an amazing late 60's setting and Tarantino knows how to make genuinely cool and stylish movies. Di Caprio is really good in it, Pitt good too, Margot Robbie not given much to work with, without knowing her fate viewers might again be wondering why she's even in the movie.

Doing it exactly as events happened might not have worked either, would risk glorifying Manson, but without prior knowledge it's a tough movie to rate, though I enjoyed it a lot, I liked it better than Hateful 8, Django, Inglorious, etc, it's much more cool and refined than they are with way less shock value, violence and swears, though you do get plenty of them too eventually.

Would definitely like to see more 60's and 70's set movies from Tarantino though I think he said he'll only do one more, I think he could do at least another 3 or 4 movies like this, slower paced cool looking movies with less shock value.
 
Caporegime
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Only the part where it gets shot is apparently CGI, all the dog work was practical, even the wall climb.

Unless you're on a wind up.

The dog poo in JW1 is cgi though :D
Not a wind-up. Got a source for that? Multiple scenes looked completely unnatural, with the uncanny valley effect you get from modern CGI.
 
Soldato
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Not a wind-up. Got a source for that? Multiple scenes looked completely unnatural, with the uncanny valley effect you get from modern CGI.

A fair few articles around based on the dog work, i've added a few links below from a quick lazy google.

https://screenrant.com/john-wick-dogs-trivia-facts/#:~:text=3 No CGI Dogs Here,four-legged variety as well.
https://moviepaws.com/2019/05/23/how-they-did-those-dog-and-horse-stunts-in-john-wick-chapter-3/

Are any animals hurt in the film? (MILD SPOILERS): We see that Sofia is as dedicated to her dogs as John Wick was to Daisy: When she takes Wick to see Berrada (Jerome Flynn), who’s connected to the High Table, Berrada demands she give him one of her dogs. She refuses, so he shoots the dog! We all know what’s coming next: She, Wick, and the dogs take down everyone in sight.

Both dogs were wearing harnesses, so it appears that the one that was shot was not actually injured. Still, it’s enough to tick off any animal lover.

And, by the way, the dog who climbs a 30-foot wall? Real, not CGI, as Rob Nederhorst, the film’s visual effects, pointed out on Twitter.

I do agree that the 3rd offering is poor narratively, however the dog work is testament to the dedication of the stunt teams and the work that goes on behind the scenes. Reeves is looking slow in a lot of his fights sadly and Mark Dacascos was wasted, the fan boi moment really turned me off the movie towards the end.

I enjoy and watch the John Wick movies overall as I know exactly what i'm going to get, i'm not expecting ground breaking story telling, just over stylised gun fights with an never exhausting supply of bad guys :D

EDIT: Just read an article that stated all the motorcycle guys in the horse chase were 100% CGI, I thought some were at least present in some capacity. Also all the glass in the knife cases at the start is completely CGI, why not sugarglass :confused:
 
Caporegime
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I enjoy and watch the John Wick movies overall as I know exactly what i'm going to get, i'm not expecting ground breaking story telling, just over stylised gun fights with an never exhausting supply of bad guys :D
There were a fair few sections where even that simple premise wasn't done right.

So for example, the first two motorcycle opponents merely ride up to Wick, get level with him, and then just sit there waiting to be shot.

A very "is that it?" moment. You have all the pre-fight build-up with the brooding shots of chaps on motorcycles, then you just completely waste them, as meat into the meat grinder, with no real purpose.

I've sort of concluded that the Assassins Guild is 2% assassins, and 98% people who thought Dignitas was too straight-forward; preferring instead to die falling out of a building or in a burning car wreck :p
 
Soldato
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@FoxEye i can't disagree with your points, as I say, I know this is what to expect at this point with JW, shame as it started so very strong. I rewatched the entire trilogy at the start of the year and by the end of JW3 I just felt let down and don't feel like it's got anywhere to go it hasn't already done. I don't have high hopes for 4.

First movie has bad guys that all move (mostly) intelligently to positions to try and fight Wick, JW messes up a few times and has to improvise, it all feels a bit more solid and real. The club fight for example is so well put together, I think he was actually quite sick during the filming and a few stumbles are real, that could just be set chatter though.
 
Soldato
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I watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood on Netflix.
(snip)Lots of interesting info.(snip)
My wife and I watched most of it and, although it was well acted and had a great cast, we found it meandering, pointless, self-indulgent and boring. Eventually we turned it off and read instead. Felt like an absolute waste of an hour. I won't bother watching the rest.
Oh, and the Bruce Lee segment just seemed like a needless insult to the man.
 
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