What film did you watch last night?

[Vern1961]

Been watching the Daniel Craig Bond films on 4K after the missus declared she wanted to get the box set. Done the first three, one to go. Can't fault the picture and sound master which is superb. However maybe it's because I came up first reading the books then the Sean Connery/Roger Moore era in particular of the movies, but I really can't get into the style or the persona Craig brings to the part. The first two movies (Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace) just feel cold and devoid of any humanity. There's no real bad guy, just an increasing hierarchy of henchman. No humour, no gadgets and Craig plays Bond like some sort of latter day Michael Myers with a suit and British accent, as he emotionlessly offs his next victim. The scene where Bond gets his tackle whacked is borderline torture porn and far from the slapstick of the earlier films. Skyfall is a little better and at least there is a nod to the earlier films when "Q" quips in return to Bond's query about exploding pens, "We don't do that any more", and of course the Aston Martin. But it still seems alien to the spirit of the books and the earlier movies. It also went on far too long, with Joaquim Barden's bad guy not really believable without his air tank, only appearing in the latter half of the movie.

So I'm probably going to get flamed for this but my ratings would be:
Casino Royale - 2/10.
Quantum Of Solace 3/10.
Skyfall 4.5/10.

 

[SixTwoSix]

@Vern1961 well your score on qos isn't far off right.

 

[steve5424]

Craigs Bond and the series reboot was done to try and modernise it and leave all the cheese behind. Make it a bit more serious. However as the films have gone on they've reverted back to some of the older Bond tropes. Some one liners and characters along with gadgets. QoS was the weakest for me as it didn't really feel like a full film. It's a sort of middle part to a trilogy. It wasn't till Spectre they got the rights back to using the name and characters. So all prior films had to be vague with who the big bad was and just give random henchman bigger roles. Wasn't till they could write spectre in officially that the first Craig films made more sense.

 

[Vern1961]

The problem is in the meantime we had movie series like Bourne, MI even stuff like Jack Reacher and John Wick which pretty much pretty much did that anyway.
In trying to be serious they ended up (for me) being bleak. Lets hope I enjoy Spectre a bit better and of course the new movie which comes out on disc before Xmas, albeit a bum numbing 2.5 hours long!

 

[Sho]

Finch 6/10
I usually enjoy a Tom Hanks film but I found the robot in this really hard to care about, the voice is just annoying and the film doesn't really go anywhere.

Exactly this.

 

[Infidelus]

Been watching the Daniel Craig Bond films on 4K after the missus declared she wanted to get the box set. Done the first three, one to go. Can't fault the picture and sound master which is superb. However maybe it's because I came up first reading the books then the Sean Connery/Roger Moore era in particular of the movies, but I really can't get into the style or the persona Craig brings to the part. The first two movies (Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace) just feel cold and devoid of any humanity. There's no real bad guy, just an increasing hierarchy of henchman. No humour, no gadgets and Craig plays Bond like some sort of latter day Michael Myers with a suit and British accent, as he emotionlessly offs his next victim. The scene where Bond gets his tackle whacked is borderline torture porn and far from the slapstick of the earlier films. Skyfall is a little better and at least there is a nod to the earlier films when "Q" quips in return to Bond's query about exploding pens, "We don't do that any more", and of course the Aston Martin. But it still seems alien to the spirit of the books and the earlier movies. It also went on far too long, with Joaquim Barden's bad guy not really believable without his air tank, only appearing in the latter half of the movie.

So I'm probably going to get flamed for this but my ratings would be:
Casino Royale - 2/10.
Quantum Of Solace 3/10.
Skyfall 4.5/10.

Pretty much agree with your comments. I've not really enjoyed any of the Craig's bond movies. Definitely agree with the torture porn comments. That really had no place in the film.

 

[arc@css]

The Guest. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980592/

I thought I had seen this before and indeed I had, but it was still quite good seeing it a second time.

Maika Monroe (from It Follows) puts in a decent performance.

 

[FoxEye]

The first CD video I ever watched, mild swearies

Awesome, thanks for that That is now the first CD video I ever watched as well

Followed by his Prometheus and Covenant reviews. Jeez, those movies were terrible.

It's utterly inexplicable that some people like these films. It's not just a matter of taste - they are just badly written, nonsensical garbage. When your plot/script is this bad, nothing (and no-one) will drag your movie above downright awful.

 

[IvanDobskey]

Awesome, thanks for that That is now the first CD video I ever watched as well

Followed by his Prometheus and Covenant reviews. Jeez, those movies were terrible.

It's utterly inexplicable that some people like these films. It's not just a matter of taste - they are just badly written, nonsensical garbage. When your plot/script is this bad, nothing (and no-one) will drag your movie above downright awful.

Watching CD pull apart bad movies is most enjoyable

Prometheus and Covenant were pretty dire. A shame as I was looking forward to them. The writing is utterly inept, relying on people doing moronic things to progress the story.

 

[Mr Jack]

Amina

A Nigerian made historical(ish) biopic, mostly in English with the occasional bit of Hausa (I presume). I'm not going to rate this one: by most measures it was bad, yet I really liked it. The acting is poor, the quality of the sets, outfits, props, and special effects is Hollywood circa 1950 quality (although some of it is bad CGI instead) but without the benefit of poor quality cameras to hide the details. Even the audio is sub par, and the lip-syncing is patchy. But it's so nice to see stuff from another culture, and I have a lasting fondness for Nigeria having lived there for a couple of years as a young child: here and there I even recognised some of the traditional artefacts and dress. The plot is decent, and the writing actually pretty solid.

If you're interested in catching some African native filmmaking, I recommend it, if not then probably give it a miss.

 

[kinger8938]

Doctor Strange.

Trying to finally catch up with the MCU. Stopped at Iron man 2 originally, few years ago got up to and through Guardians one and hated it so stopped again.

Last week I decided to try again so have done Age of Ultron (ok, horrid writing), Ant man(fun), Civil War (probably the strongest so far)

Then last night Doctor Strange. It was ok, as a standalone film it was entertaining enough

 

[jpaul]

The scene where Bond gets his tackle whacked is borderline torture porn and far from the slapstick of the earlier films.

It's faithful to the book - read as a child you don't forget it,
would be interesting if someone has done a timeline for Flemming book based movies showing which scenes are true,
I think the sinister aspects of the characters were not really captured in the movies, ... unlike something like Harry Palmer;
Bonds are too iconical to remake though.

 

[Vern1961]

It's faithful to the book - read as a child you don't forget it,
would be interesting if someone has done a timeline for Flemming book based movies showing which scenes are true,
I think the sinister aspects of the characters were not really captured in the movies, ... unlike something like Harry Palmer;
Bonds are too iconical to remake though.

In the book wasn't it a carpet beater though, not something that looked like leather bound round a lead weight and attached to a long rope? I agree though still gruesome and matched only by the scene in Last Kingdom where the guy gets his eye taken out with a red hot poker. I didn't sleep right that night after watching that scene!

 

[BUDFORCE]

L.A. Confidential.

Never seen it before, was alright........

 

[BUDFORCE]

Been watching the Daniel Craig Bond films on 4K after the missus declared she wanted to get the box set. Done the first three, one to go. Can't fault the picture and sound master which is superb. However maybe it's because I came up first reading the books then the Sean Connery/Roger Moore era in particular of the movies, but I really can't get into the style or the persona Craig brings to the part. The first two movies (Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace) just feel cold and devoid of any humanity. There's no real bad guy, just an increasing hierarchy of henchman. No humour, no gadgets and Craig plays Bond like some sort of latter day Michael Myers with a suit and British accent, as he emotionlessly offs his next victim. The scene where Bond gets his tackle whacked is borderline torture porn and far from the slapstick of the earlier films. Skyfall is a little better and at least there is a nod to the earlier films when "Q" quips in return to Bond's query about exploding pens, "We don't do that any more", and of course the Aston Martin. But it still seems alien to the spirit of the books and the earlier movies. It also went on far too long, with Joaquim Barden's bad guy not really believable without his air tank, only appearing in the latter half of the movie.

So I'm probably going to get flamed for this but my ratings would be:
Casino Royale - 2/10.
Quantum Of Solace 3/10.
Skyfall 4.5/10.

100% agree Daniel Craig bond movies are ****.

 

[IvanDobskey]

100% agree Daniel Craig bond movies are ****.

I thought casino royale was ok, I guess. But the rest are pretty poor films in my opinion.

 

[sbweightman]

Cry Macho (2021) - 3/10

A saccharine film which seems to be about what Clint Eastwood likes.

The simple plot is relatively eventful, although as the stakes are low you won’t be too invested, and the wooden acting undermines the more dramatic moments.

Eastwood looks far too old to be playing the role and the limited action scenes suffer for it.

It is watchable and has some charm with its rustic style and setting, but overall, it was boring.

 

[TurtleTwo]

Cry Macho (2021) - 3/10

A saccharine film which seems to be about what Clint Eastwood likes.

The simple plot is relatively eventful, although as the stakes are low you won’t be too invested, and the wooden acting undermines the more dramatic moments.

Eastwood looks far too old to be playing the role and the limited action scenes suffer for it.

It is watchable and has some charm with its rustic style and setting, but overall, it was boring.

The film didn't go anywhere, can't believe I sat and watched it all. 2/10 from me.

 

[VincentHanna]

A 90 year old that two different women seem to fall for.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Red Notice 7/10

Absolutely ridiculous and far fetched clichéd heist movie but entertaining and lots of funny moments, Reynolds, Johnson and Galdot are very charismatic, which definitely helps!