Movie Record 2023 Edition - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

Yup joining in with the Moon love. Pretty much perfect movie. Simple premise, incredibly well executed.

The Daddy

‘Tis

djchump

Moon is up there with Primer, Predestination and Her in the “fantastic low(ish) budget indie cerebral sci-fi” film club for me.

Gremill

6. The Batman
Is R.Patz the best Batz? I'm inclined to think so, based on this absolutely epic cross between Seven and the best of the most Gothic bat-comics. Yes, it's far too long but goddamn for a fan like me it's manna from heaven. Pattinson is an incredible Batman - brutal, unhinged and obsessed. He's a less great Wayne, but as Paul Dano's brilliantly psychotic Riddler says - the bat is his true mask. The characters and actors are all on point but they really sing against the backdrop of Gotham, superbly realised in dark, damp noir tinged griminess by director Matt Reeves. Superb. 10

Paul the sparky

Did you like the music? I liked the music

Wookienopants

Couldn't agree more Grem

RedDave2

Imagine That
Really Odd Eddie Murphy film where he is a big business stock broker guy who needs his estranged daughters comfort blanket that allows him to ask 3 imaginary princesses which stocks are worth investing in.

Also stars Thomas Hayden Church as a trader who posses as an indian who uses mystical Indian rituals to find the right stocks

A Kids movie, that also stars Martin Sheen. Just so strange. [3]

poprock

Wakanda Forever
Two and three-quarter hours of lightweight superhero nonsense. Not a patch on the first (which was beautiful but also kind of ‘meh’) and far too long.

ShabbyMcCrabby

15. Mission Impossible 3
Definitely the one that sets the style and tone of these going forward. Been cool to see how they've managed to make them better and better as they go even though the elements are the same. JJ has done better action than this and it's quite ugly looking throughout but the pacing is good and Hoffman is a great, simple baddie.
[6]

b0r1s

15. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - the typical sequel this has the usual issues of trying to introduce too much and needing a good half hour cut from its running time. The setting of Wakanda is great as is the land of the new enemy but it’s not enough to carry an average plot. The handling of Boseman’s loss was very well done though. [7]

16. The Menu - Fiennes hamming it up in this black comedy about the elite dining at the uppermost level. The idea is sound but let down by an obvious plot, with the dark humour blunted by an ever-too-present shouting about morality, too on the nose for its own good. It definitely needed something original for the third act.[6]

RedDave2

Ghost WriterHighly praised political noir thriller from Polanski with a fairly solid cast. I found it a bit over the top dramatics to be honest and many of the cast seem to be doing accents that they aren't really able to do. Kim Cattrall is the worst for the am-dram style and it feels like she is still doing her sex in the city character. Ewan McGregor is the lead but I think it might be the weakest I've seen him in a role (he is still good but I expect more from him). Its 2 hours really feels it and while not awful, I'm struggling to see how this was claimed to be one of the best films of 2010. [6]

GooberTheHat

acemuzzy wrote:

I don't think I've seen it. I guess I should fix that.

Meanwhile, just finished Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 with my eldest. Pretty meh tbh, maybe but surprising as it's just building to the finale, I imagine?

They don't get better.

davyK

Yi Yi There's nothing going on in this film and simultaneously there's a lot happening but we don't see it happening. We get to see the aftermath. There's shouting, crying, murder, betrayal, death, temptation and guilt. But it is among the sweetest films I've seen.

Beautiful piece of work. Bergmanesque at times. This will require a rewatch.

hylian_elf

Great movie!

davyK

Aye. A Criterion purchase - there was a deal on in HMV. I got it with The Ascent.

hylian_elf

I have A Brighter Summer’s Day (by the same director) on my shelf but I need to find a quiet non-bush 4 hours for it!

davyK

Heh. Yi Yi at 3hrs is a breeze nowadays!!

High time I watched Satantango again. I've watched it twice on DVD, but haven't plucked up the cahonies to watch the BluRay.

LivDiv

Rope
The infinitely watchable James Stewart unpicks a murder through Hitchcock's early "one take".
Excellent.

Gremill

7. Escape From LA
Incredibly stupid but great fun Plissken sequel with Kurt's phenomenal mullet tracking down the president's wayward daughter across a shonky earthquake rattled LA. I remember hating it when it first came out because it wasn't as good as the original, or many of Carpenters other classics, but there's a lot to like in it. 6

Gremill

8. Fury
Gritty, grim and brutal WW2 men on a mission movie with Braddy Tank Commander, Sheila LeBeef and The Punisher exploding Nazis. Pretty great. 8

RedDave2

Puss in Boots : the last wish

Surprisingly good animation with a dollop of the into the spiderverse style helping the visuals and a nice spaghetti western influence with the music. Banderas is great as Puss and the Wolf is one of the best villains in a kids movie in a long time. Hell, he is better than most of the villains in the marvel universe for that matter [8]

davyK

The Bedford Incident is a claustrophobic Cold War story set at sea on a destroyer hunting a Russian submarine that has been caught where it shouldn't. All the tropes - lots of sonar pings, a caustic captain (Richard Widmark), a journalist who winds him up (Sidney Poitier) and a wholesome crew staffed by "that guys" including Martin Balsom. The ending features a mistake stupid enough to be believable. Rather good. Saw this many years ago but I only remember the memorable ending. Worth a look.

davyK

Women Talking Wifey and the girls went to see this and I tagged along. Not sure what I was expecting but what you get here is almost a horror film. It deals with pretty gruesome subject matter. At first it felt a bit stagey but that drops away. It's an ensemble piece and the performances are all great.

Not a whiney "American women sitting around moanin" film. Not at all. This isn't easy or light viewing. Frances McDormand is almost unrecognisable in the small part she plays (she's one of the producers). A smart, dark, challenging film.

DrewMerson

davyK

DrewMerson wrote:

I’ll just pop on my pedantic hat to point out that it’s called Women Talking.

Well spotted.....

ShabbyMcCrabby

LivDiv wrote:

Rope The infinitely watchable James Stewart unpicks a murder through Hitchcock's early "one take". Excellent.

I love how modern Hitchcock's films feel with their filmmaking. Really must have felt ahead of their time back then.

LivDiv

Yeah I thought that a few times watching this and Psycho recently. Must have been quite the thing.

On a similar note I watched 2001 this week too. It amazes me that it was made before man stepped foot on the moon. 9 years before Star Wars, 11 before Alien. An incredible achievement.

Moot_Geeza

Yes but the moon landing footage was made at the exact same time.

davyK

Heh. He admitted as much in The Shining.

LivDiv

Haha. I watched that doc on Prime not long ago that goes through all the conspiracies around The Shining.
Various levels of mental but some are incredibly far reaching. You can smell the backwards working.

Did point out a lot of oddities I hadn't noticed before though, especially the impossible layout of The Overlook. I watched The Shining last week as well, Im on a classics roll. See also Rear Window.

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