I Just Watched (Films)

[Animalmother]

Australian western The Proposition might be worth a look if you haven't seen it before Raid (or can find it for that matter). It's written by Nick Cave and has Guy Pearce and Ray Winston in it.

I have no real evidence to back it up but I think the visual style of the characters and the plot influenced Red Dead Redemption. Guy Pearce is John Marston and Danny Houston looks a lot like Bill Williamson.

[Raid]

Yeah, I've seen The Proposition, though I'd happily watch it again were it available. Availability is the main problem really, there are a ton of them I'd like to watch but there just aren't many available at the moment.

I'm certain it's watching a Let's Play of RDR2 that's put me so firmly in the mood for a good Western, although I did watch the whole Dollars trilogy earlier in the year before starting in, so maybe my tastes have just changed. I've already noticed an homage or two in the few I've managed to see since. The shot where Marston holds up a train by standing atop an oil wagon in the dead of night (lit only by the train's headlamp) is a close replica of a shot in Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

[Animalmother]

Yeah unless your willing to shiver me timbers it's getting harder to watch stuff. You try Bone Tomahawk yet? It's eye wateringly brutal in places but still good.

[Snowy]

Bone Tomahawk is superb, but yes it is indeed excpetionally brutal in places!

[Wrathbone]

Ocean’s Eight

This should be used as a benchmark for how not to make a film. The first third is incoherent, purposeless bimbling which doesn’t explain or frame anything about the story other than ‘let’s do a heist’. I’m not convinced that any of the characters are even given names. The heist itself is dull and devoid of any suspense, with the only problem encountered during the execution of the plan being a waiter who’s stops to have a chat when they need him to move on. In a riveting moment of ingenuity, the situation is resolved by them telling him to move on.

After the ‘story’ (and I use that term waveringly) ends, the film somehow keeps going for another 20 minutes. James Corden turns up as an insurance investigator who interrogates everyone and then kind of gives up. There’s a thing about an ex-boyfriend being framed which fizzles out without explanation. But the stupidest thing of all is when it turns out they didn’t just steal the thing they were after, but also a bunch of other things! And then we’re tediously shown some more heist scenes trying to explain that for no fucking reason. None of it has any relevance to anything that came before!

One of the worst written, unstructured calamities I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about it.

1/10

[Sly Boots]

[Raid]

Zootropolis

After the initial wow factor caused by the gorgeous animation style and fairly exciting first half hour of this die down, you're left with a pretty rudimentary kids' police film that doesn't really fulfil its promise. I like a good Disney film, but this was too formulaic.

TRON: Legacy

Tron Legacy is one of my absolute favourite films, and I think this is probably my fifth or sixth viewing. It's a guilty pleasure, no doubt - it's not a particularly novel story or premise and it's a little predictable, but it's one of the most beautiful looking and sounding films I've ever seen. The soundtrack is just phenomenal, and the ultra-high contrast visual style just hits all of the right buttons for me. I'm listening to that soundtrack as I write this.

[Animalmother]

I remember liking Tron: Legacy when I first saw it but I think a recent rewatch kind of ruined it for me. The music is excellent indeed, Daft Punk was made for this sort of thing. Visually very unique but the cgi on young Flynn was brutal though, uffff!

Hungerford
Why the hell did I watch this? Alien bugs invade the town of Hungerford and turn people into mindless lunatics. Done as a found footage so that's an indication of what your in for. Overly dramatic acting, bad cgi and just plain silly. If it had gone down the comedy route it might actually have been better but it takes itself far too seriously. Think it might be a film students effort.

[Achtung Englander]

Soul

Excellent. Same Pixar beats but I loved some of the ideas. The casting of Richard Ayoade was one of the best things about it.

8/10

Spoiler

As someone who admires Alan Watts theology, he summed up the plot back in the 60s pretty much spot on:

[Achtung Englander]

Ocean’s Eight

One of the worst written, unstructured calamities I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about it.

1/10

It employed lots of people.

[Snowy]

Ocean’s Eight

1/10

I only ever watched the first one, Oceans 11? It was exactly what you describe in 8.
- We are going to perform a heist
- We are performing a heist
- We performed a heist
Roll credits.

At no point was there any tension, anything to raise even a glimmer of interest in the proceedings, but people seemed to love the fucking steaming turd and looked askance at me when I asked why.

[Wrathbone]

It employed lots of people.

True, but it arguably destroyed some careers too.

I only ever watched the first one, Oceans 11? It was exactly what you describe in 8.

That's the only other one I've seen, and I agree that it's a bag of balls, but it's masterful in comparison to 8.

[Alan]

It really isnt


Our Christmas filming was

Christmas Holiday
Gene Kelly number where he plays a not so nice fella that doesn't dance. It was fine but it doesnt go anywhere and ends in a rather unsatisfying way.

Little Shop Of Horrors
I always forget just how fantastic that puppet is. Also what a great movie it is but man thats such a brilliant puppet!

Groundhog Day
Still great, missus hadn't seen it she agrees its great.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Look at all those properties living together in sweet harmony! Pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-reeeeze Eddie!

[2Channelwonder]

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses

Glad it was on Netflix and I could stop and pause anywhere to get more snacks and a drink, trademark Scorsese with the steadicam and other signature camera movement, but it's understated and more low-key than Goodfellas or Casino and you definitely get the totally unromantic side to what Robert De Niro's character's exposure to the gangster lifestyle costs him in the final act after the road movie section of the film comes to an end. Well edited and after 15 mins De Niro gets his "introduction" to the mob world and I didn't take another snack break for over two hours it was that engaging watching this three hander from the acting side of things with other big names in support together with several character actors having a few key scenes at a time all drawn across the backdrop of the 1950s to the 1980s.

It also wasn't boring when the writer of the book and the director actually underline the fact that we're talking about a pre internet and pre satnav world here and so people actually needed maps to plan routes and used coin-operated telephone boxes and drove from point A to point B and back again and used face to face messengers; Scorsese avoids the conventional quick cutting that would take the film below its 3hrs 29min runtime so the viewer needs to set aside the time to watch events unfold including radio or TV newsflashes and there's one key scene for The Irishman where nothing is said but you can take a good guess at the outcome and quite simply you have the modern day update to the kitchen table scene from Raging Bull in colour 39 years later between the same actors (only this time you are not left wondering what took Joe Pesci so much longer to break through than the other actors in his generation) and you could just see in the lead actors' faces that they were enjoying working together.

So I'm glad I kept up with Netflix to catch this and with the crazily high budget that Netflix's billions per month subscription earnings allowed they financed a load of unassuming but groundbreaking CGI with the exception of De Niro's eye colour change that looked too bright to be contact lenses and one scene's CGI blood that seemed to have been deliberately made a lighter shade of red than real blood (or maybe that was just my TV and the fact that it was slow motion- neither of those two instances take you out of the world of the film too much). Well worth catching if you're on a Netflix trial or are considering quitting the service and want one last big title to watch.

[Animalmother]

Assassination Nation
One of the more unpleasant films I've seen in a while. A parody of the Salem Witch Trials (I think), it's involves phone hacking, slut shaming and generally how awful it is to be a teenage girl in the US. It gets crazy violent towards the end and goes a wee bit off the rails.
There isn't a single likeable character in the entire film which I'm not entirely sure was intentional, the four main girls are vapid bellends for example, everyone else is just a fucking asshole. It does have some great extended tracking shots that are really effective and short very intense gun fights a lot of crime films can't pull off.