I doubt it.

Kermode wasn't a fan of the first but really liked the new one, if that helps at all...

There's much more flying in this one and done much better too.

Cheers.  It's now been moved from the best screen to a small screen but still.

Well - the original is a stupid film.   

Cos can be my wingman anytime, rest of you can crash and burn. TG:M is awesome, saw it at the IMAX where it was double awesome.

Cheers, Pop! I'll watch those this afternoon.

The only review of Top Gun I’m interested in is Elm’s.

Blood Diamond is a good old yarn about a diamond smuggler in war torn Africa. Blood is right.  

Requires suspension of belief in places when it gets a bit Rambo, but Leo does another great job  in the lead. Jennifer Connolly does a good job and wow she looks fine.     Djimon Hounsou (recognised from Gladiator but had to google him) is great in main support - moves from gentle to rage while maintaining authenticity.

Script is a tad simplistic and it probably goes on for too long, but there ye go. Leo makes it watchable.

davyK wrote:

I'm not one for having heroes. I have people I admire for different reasons but there aren't many of them. When it comes to sport there are a few people who were around when I was of a certain age. The very few who create a sense of awe in the spectator. One of those people is Diego Maradonna, another was Ayrton Senna.  There is no-one close before or since. Some of his races are like film scripts and watching the man drive in the rain showed the gap between him and everyone else on the track. Senna is a documentary of him, showing early footage of him go-karting and also showing the first person view of the last seconds of his life. Footage even now that gives me a sense of dread and sadness. This film highlights how better he was than even I realised. Brilliant piece of work.

Turns out the guy who made this has also made a doc about Diego Maradonna!  Seeking that out.

Also did the Amy Winehouse one - it seems he and I have very similar tastes (he's 50).

Long flight somewhere Shabs?

Cos wrote:

60. The Father I was not prepared for that. The intimate look at living with dementia was possibly one of the most terrifying films I’ve seen in some time. The way it’s constructed is incredibly clever so plenty to appreciate. Hopkins is superb, heartbreaking to watch at times and that last scene fucking ruined me. A fantastic film I will never watch again. [9]

I lost a very close aunt to dementia not long ago, just before Covid lockdown.  Hit hard.  Hit my mother (it was her sister) very hard.  And I know the family (my cousins) really struggled with my aunt for years, but they never gave up.

My mother doesn't have dementia, or any signs of it (yet), but I watched the film and was thinking of my aunt and my mother too and it's a tough one.

Men - Alex Garland's not a subtle man is he?  If it weren't for the budget and A-list cast you'd be forgiven for thinking this was made by some fresh faced film graduate keen to shove all his ideas on screen, rather than a relatively experienced filmmaker and novelist. I guess it's in keeping with his previous work, more focussed on the ideas, and the feeling, than on any conventional story telling as such.

None of which really matters, because the film compensates for its lack of subtlety and narrative shortcomings with some extraordinary performances, and wonderful visual and audio flourishes. In fact, it's the sound that really struck me with this - from the sound design, to the music and motifs. An early scene, in which our protagonist plays with her own echo is extraordinary - it ignores how echoes actually work, and as a result produces something every bit as pleasing as a "true" echo in real life. That sense of heightened reality is a great strength in the movie - my favourite scenes are really before everything blows up - beautiful, lyrical depictions of the natural world that made me yearn for Garland to allow himself to linger in that mindset for a whole movie one day.

When stuff happens of course, it happens with style, a series of gradually escalating scenes in which Jessie Buckley is pitted against...
So, yeah.  I enjoyed it a fair bit, but found myself looking forward to the next stage in Garland's directorial career, at the expense of truly appreciating this one.

I think the automatic sentry guns bit was added for the special edition. I don’t think it brought anything important to the film though. And wasn’t there a bit more of the Ripley/Burke interaction from before she agrees to go on the mission? I think the whole conversation where she learns that her daughter is dead was added.

Yeah....he used to be the stock Yank on Brit TV shows.