7. The House
Beautifully crafted stop motion anthology of three short films focussed on a house and its occupants at different times.
Stylistically it is very similar to Fantastic Mr Fox, I couldn't see any studio crossover but I wouldn't be surprised if they share some credits.

That being said this isn't a movie for young kids. It is dark, darker than say Caroline.
At times it reminded me of the early Russian/Eastern European stop motion films, an influence I am sure the creators would be happy to recognise.

Of the 3 shorts the first stood out to me as the best. It was odd, unsettling and intriguing. The other two while solid had less weight with the last falling probably more into fanciful than dark.
Scores for the three in order [9] [7] [6]. Points include the artistry which is high throughout.

Overall [8]. The first doing the heavy lifting there. I'll watch the first again but likely not the others.

Wookienopants wrote:

Ghostbusters: Afterlife I know you lot were quite harsh on this but I absolutely adored it. It felt like it was made for me, the Ghostbusters superfan. I'm the guy who grew up with the movie, watched the cartoon series religiously, knew every word from the film (still do!), ran around with my friend with a replica toy proton pack. The first film was the first dvd I ever bought. Ive seen it more than any other movie. As I type this I'm genuinely wearing a Ghostbusters pj top. I'm a 36 year old man in Ghostbusters jammies. This was great. Made me so happy

Me too. I was 18 when the original came out so don't have the same wide eyed love for it. In fact I was originally disappointed when I realised it was a comedy. But I still really like the original and the sequel. I enjoyed this too.

14. The Departed - everyone having loads of fun in this Story of Boston police corruption with Marky fucking Mark donning it above them all. [9]

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

9. Last Night in Soho
At first I thought the terrible, unsubtle writing was on purpose and would lead to something but no it was just bad writing. Also, a couple of creepy moments but a lot that seemed like they were meant to be but they really weren't... Disappointing.
[3]

Almost like Edgar Wright is a bad director.

Ah yes, I activated the Reg-signal.

I like his earlier stuff but he definitely needs someone to write his films for him

Sorry. I just think he is a hype man

8. Scary Movie
Some jokes fall flat and some definitely wouldn't fly now. For the most part though is still found it pretty funny.
Stoner humour is something I have mostly grown out of but Shorty is so ott with it he stills gets me.
[7]

16. The Trial of The Chicago 7 - a small part of American history I didn’t know about so the outcome of the trial kept me watching. Not the best courtroom drama I’ve seen. I found the pacing a little off, couldn’t put my finger on it, despite solid performances. Didn’t realise until the end that Sorkin wrote and directed. Maybe he should stick to writing. [7]

The Matrix Resurrections

Not as bad as I was lead up believe. Very very hard to do a new Matrix movie but I liked what they did with this one.

Gremill wrote:

5. The Hobbit: Battle of the 5 Armies
I love the LotR films, but other than a few amazing scenes from this trilogy I found the majority of the Hobbit films a bit crap. They're tonally all over the place but actually I enjoyed this one on rewatch, probably because it's the darkest of the three and totally the most consistent. 7

Haven't seen any Hobbit films and none of the LotR since release, I watched them all after new year and really enjoyed them all. Did the Hobbits first, then the extended rings (fnar). Really enjoyed, I probably enjoyed the Hobbit films more because I'm some kind of monster, but could also be that that's a lot of Tolkien to watch back to back so the further through I got, the less impact they had.

Yossarian wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

9. Last Night in Soho
At first I thought the terrible, unsubtle writing was on purpose and would lead to something but no it was just bad writing. Also, a couple of creepy moments but a lot that seemed like they were meant to be but they really weren't... Disappointing.
[3]

Almost like Edgar Wright is a bad director.

Ah yes, I activated the Reg-signal.

I like his earlier stuff but he definitely needs someone to write his films for him

Sorry. I just think he is a hype man

He raps as well?!

I have put him in the same camp as Nolan where they have a great appreciation for film and filmmaking and they have a love of crafting a complex scene and putting something on film that you might never have seen before. Buuuuuuuuuut, the writing is largely garbage, especially in recent times where both directors seem to have taken on more writing themselves.

Not had a chance to watch a film all week, but finally got onto one:

17. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11151336/

Violently low budget horror/crime/drama about a video archivist who stumbles across a broadcast signal intrusion on one of the tapes he is archiving, which leads him down a rabbit-hole of who, why, what. Alongside this is the tech of the mid to late 90s, BBS, messageboards. A film about obsession primarily, he has recently lost his partner. Some interesting ideas co-existing with some bang average performances. Which is to be expected when it seems to have been shot for about a grand.

Has a couple of lulls and some fantastic scenes (I was a big fan of the last 15 minutes, albeit looking on the net it appears I'm one of a few who did). I always give leeway to things that are both ambitious and low budget, so it gets a recommended. The BSI's are fairly creepy and well done. Its just a tad too generic in certain aspects.

[7] (would be a 5 or 6 if it'd been some big money ting)

Did you watch The Empty Man, DS? I appreciated the scope of what they tried to achieve with a low budget in that one. They almost pulled it off on the whole too. There's some cracking sequences in it.


12. The Last Duel
Say one thing about Ridders, the man can put together a sword fight. I enjoyed this quite a lot, feels like a film from a different era. Can't imagine many directors getting a big budget for something like this.
[8]

I could probably see that side of it too

scream 4

It was alright. Little bored in the middle.

Imitation Game Load of bollocks. Couldn't keep watching. I know there's artistic licence but the image of Turing building the damn machine alone is pure shite and it glosses over the engineering genius of the likes of Tommy Flowers.

The building was filled with geniuses across many fields - one linguist taught himself Japanese in 3 weeks.

The letter to Churchill going over the commander's head was bollocks too - though he and 2 others wrote to ask for more resources.

So I had to give up. I really like the Cumberbatch and his performance but as a fan of the subject matter and Turing I couldn't bring myself to keep watching.

13. Cuties
What an incredible, terrifying and uncomfortable film. Of course, I only really knew it from the controversy but I shouldn't have been surprised it was much much more than that. The performances feel so naturalistic and I wasn't expecting the Senegalese elements which also felt very real. Would work as a companion piece to both Eighth Grade and His House.
[9]

14. Fear Street '94
Took me three watch sessions to get through this. It's obviously competently made and I'll probably slowly watch the others but something about it just didn't really grab me. Perhaps it's the grab-bag nature of a lot of the parts in trying to pay homage to the time period. Not sure.

15. Wrong Turn 2021
Really disappointed with this in the end because it starts at about an 8 and ended at about a 3 for me (although the final shot helped with me feeling better about it by the credits). It's a shame too because it has a great setup and some excellently executed violence (fantastic falling throughout) but then it fumbles the execution of a lot of it's elements and the acting is a bit too much at times. I'd say it's worth watching if you're into this kind of thing. Webbins.
[8 - 3]

It actually annoys me a little thinking about Wrong Turn more. I think the full arc of the story is good but I wished they'd made some slightly different creative decisions at points