What film did you watch last night?

The Mummy - 2/10 - More dirge from the Hollywood slop bucket, I'm utterly unsurprised this was the lowest cinema box office in 10 years considering the dross pumped out this year and the Mummy, well that's just a symptom of lazy "empire" building attempts by lazy studios employing lazy screenwriters. Cruise was Cruise, the blond archaeologist was just a damsel to be rescued, Crowe was wasted and the Mummy herself was probably the best thing there but again, any talent she has was buried beneath layers of lazy scriptwriting, poor direction, odd editing and poor CGI for the money spent.

PlacidCasual said:
Ill in bed this afternoon so watched Draft Day on Amazon Prime on the tablet.

I really enjoyed it Costner does these kind of character pretty well. Had a pretty good ensemble cast. It was never going to win awards but was a reasonable way to waste 2 hours.
Click to expand...

I really enjoyed this little sleeper of a movie, it does almost everything right whilst not being big and brash (very un-American really considering the event) and led by solid actors putting in solid performances.
 
Finally got around to watching Dr Strange which I thoroughly enjoyed. The visuals throughout were fantastic when they were using their powers during the fight scenes etc, there was some good humor and a good story. I had the same feeling with this as I did with the first Guardians, a surprise film from Marvel that works really well as a standalone but also fits into the MCU really nicely. 9/10 for me.
 
Shot Caller - 7/10 - After the "Hollywood Blockbuster" dross I've watched over the past few weeks (Baywatch, Transformers 5, the Mummy etc) this made a refreshing change. It had some strong acting (and some average too TBF), a tight script and direction which kept it's focus laser sharp through-out on the change a "decent" man can go through after just one simple slip-up causes things to snowball. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) did a fantastic job of ditching his GoT persona and allowed his character "Money", a new member of an "Nazi" gang which he joins for protection whilst in jail, to fully take over, both mentally and physically (he bulked up massively, had tattoos etc).

The rest of the cast did well although I felt Lake Bell as the ex-wife was a little wasted once the story really got going (a consequence of such a narrow focus) and there was very little back story given to establish who the side characters were but the story didn't really need that extra detail to move forward (but it would have been nice). Overall strong acting and a strong script proves to be more important than $100 million in CGI any day, maybe Hollywood would do well to remember that!
 
:D

1xgdik.jpg
 
Blade Runner 2049 - Solid 9/10

Beautifully shot, colourful, dark and set perfectly. Sound was dirty, loud and sublime. Even down to the gunshots and Wallace’s little robot fish eyes, the sound they make is absolutely brilliant. There’s a lot to love about the setting and cinematography that I found pretty perfect and I was, like many i'm sure, worried about leading up to it. This was a Blade Runner film worthy of the name for sure. It’s a shame it seems many couldn’t give it a go (looking at box office figures). But I suppose I’m okay if it’s going to stay at least a little bit niche.
 
Spuj said:
Finally got around to watching Dr Strange which I thoroughly enjoyed. The visuals throughout were fantastic when they were using their powers during the fight scenes etc, there was some good humor and a good story. I had the same feeling with this as I did with the first Guardians, a surprise film from Marvel that works really well as a standalone but also fits into the MCU really nicely. 9/10 for me.
Click to expand...

Just watched it myself last night and I totally agree with you. Great Movie and I wasn't expecting it to be that good. It's always a good feeling when a movie catches you by surprise in a good way :) 8/10 for me.
 
Resident Evil Vendetta - 7/10. Really good for the classic gamers of the Res Evil series, lots of nods back etc.

The graphics were amazing and acting very good. There were some good amounts of gore and some godd gun battles (think John Wick!).

The storyline was good, but fizzled a little towards the end as it all seemed to finish quickly. Also:

Not sure about the dead coming back to life at the end ie when they dropped the vaccine. These people are dead and also they have ripped peoples throats out and maybe have had chunks bitten out of them. Imagine coming "back to life" - you're going to be in a lot of pain!
 
Rough Night - 2/10 - My last Hollywood dross for a while (I get to pick the next film not her), this is a role reversal comedy with an "acting like men" Hen party turning into poor Weekend at Bernies rip-off after an incident with a male stripper. This film is a terrible example of a film that is trying too hard at being a "Women who want to be just like men" comedy compared to something like Bridesmaids. It's unfunny, had extremely poor characters which were poorly acted in the main (McKinnon came over OK), it was poorly directed, poorly scripted and makes everyone in it look just a little silly for agreeing to be in it, although I'm hoping the set would have been a fun place to be with all the comedic talent there. The Bridesmaids style gross out comedy falls flat every time and just gets annoying rather than LOL, the awful "new best friend vs old best friend" shtick is tired and done very poorly and the "comedy" in the blokes Stag night party misses the mark so widely it's just grim.

This was a great chance for a film to put an original spin on the genre but instead that opportunity has been wasted as it just feels like it's trying way too hard to be a "look, women can be in a gross out stag/hen night" type film without ever bothering to realise what makes those films funny in the first place. The side characters were wasted in cameo roles as a pair of hyper sexual neighbours (Demi Moore & Ty Burrell) and the "twist" ending was just a scriptwriting 101 level mistake.

If this is the quality of modern "Woooow look what gross stuff women can do" films then they've already lost the battle for respect that films like Bridesmaids earned them in the past.
 
Last edited:
Back to consuming shed loads of Netflix on the commute, most recently:

Straight Outta Compton - 8/10 - Excellent biopic, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did as I'm not really a rap fan, but it's well scripted and well acted considering the cast are relative unknowns. Even enjoyed the music which was a nice surprise since I'm traditionally more inclined toward rock, there's one scene with Ice Cube recording a diss track aimed at NWA (No Vaseline) which cuts between him in the studio and NWA listening and reacting which is absolutely brilliant. I also really enjoyed the time they dedicated to the historical context, the Crips and Bloods stuff, the LA riots, Rodney King etc. Ever since I played San Andreas back in the day I've had a real interest in the situation within LA during the late 80's early 90's. So watching this led on to....:

Boys n the Hood - 7/10 - How have I never watched this? Cuba Gooding was good, Fishburne was good, the only issue I have is that it felt somewhat dated, and I was kind of trying to find a film that gave a wider picture of the situation at the time and the focus of Boys n the Hood is quite narrow, aiming at the interpersonal relationships and the impact of gang violence rather than the specifics of what was going on. Not a failing of the film at all.

The Bye Bye Man - 5/10 - I love Halloween, it always kind of puches me to get back into my old love of horror movies. This started off pretty promisingly, tighter main cast focussing on three close knit people so there was no feeling of expendability there which I find makes it difficult to invest in similar films. However after about the half way mark it all descends into nonsense, I've not watched the ending yet but the final 3rd feels very rushed and the cognitive leaps required for some of the thinking exhibited by the main guy is just nonsense. I can't even adequately explain it away by focussing on his mental state, it's just nonsense. In contrast I watched Hellhouse LLC the other day and I really enjoyed that precisely because it didn't try to have its protagonists unravel some big mystery, bad crap happened, there's no string that you can pull that will fix all this.
 
No Vaseline is absolutely brutal. Easily the best diss track ever recorded. Ice Cube deserves all the praise as songwriter/lyricist. Love that film and I did the same by going to watch BITH afterwards :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom