Movie Record 2023 Edition - The Bear and Badger

RedDave2

61. Up in the Air
Enjoyable and slight, it doesn't quite nail its landing but its engaging thanks to George and the resolution (or lack of) for Clooneys Ryan Bingham is subtly done. Reitman takes some of his style from Thank you for Smoking but it feels a little out of place and the story doesn't need the flashy stuff. Kendrick feels a bit lost between Clooney and Farmiga but I'm not sure if thats intentional.

[7]

Moot_Geeza

A quick Google reveals it's not the Ryan Bingham I was thinking of.

davyK

Bait Arthousey. Stylish. B&W. Grainy. 4:3. But any suspicions of pretention fall away very quickly. A tale of family, economic and cultural tensions in a Cornish fishing/holiday village. The tension remains throughout, helped by the unsettling editing, including flash forwards, and sparse soundtrack. Occasionally it feels almost Lynchian but it's very much the filmakers' own work.

An interesting engaging film. On BFI.

tin_robot

@davyK - Bait's excellent. If you enjoyed it, it might be worth watching Enys Men, Mark Jenkins next film. I've reviewed it a little way back so won't re-do it here, but will warn you that it's a slightly different beast. An odd, meditative sort-of-ghost story. You can none the less very much tell it's the work of the same man.

Meanwhile I've been watching...

Hausu
I saw this a long time ago, and wasn't quite sure whether the stuff I remembered happening was real or not. So I was happy to have another go at it when a friend suggested it.

It is weirder than I remember, and quite extraordinary. I think it's best described as what a horror movie might look like as imagined by a child. The tone veers rapidly from one extreme to the the other, one moment a teen movie, the next a weird 70s slapstick comedy, the next a genuinely horrific meditation on generational trauma and Hiroshima, before very quickly taking a u-turn into straight up exploitation and then a bit of comedy kung-fu.

Broadly, the plot sees 7 girls decamping to the house of their friend's aunt for the summer, only to discover that the Aunt, and indeed the house, aren't as benign as they seemed.

There are lots of interesting things going on here, though sometimes for no apparent reason. There's a bit of stop motion animation, there's some probably ground breaking at the time green screen, some extraordinarily gaudy background paintings, a whole flashback sequence filmed as if on old stock footage, and some inventive use of lenses, framing and God know what else.

Horrible things happen, but it's never remotely scary thanks to the quite deliberate tactic of rendering everything in the least realistic way possible. Like this, for instance:

House_%281977%29_special_effects_cat.png

House_%281977%29_special_effects_cat.png

Whether this barrage adds up to anything more than "what the fuck was that?" is hard to say, but it's definitely entertaining. As Mrs Tin said afterwards "I don't know what that was about, or even if it was good, but I'm definitely glad I watched it."

(Oddly even the title is weird, it's invariably called Hausu in the west, but the original Japanese title is, very deliberately, House.)

Then at the other end of the scale we have...

Extraction 2

Chris Hemsworth is back playing The Very Serious Man that seemingly died at the end of the last movie. Spoilers - he's not dead after all.

On the one hand, this has some absolutely fantastic action sequences. They're crunchy, they're visceral, and you know pretty much what's going on at every moment.

On the other hand, the actual script is terrible, even by action movie standards. People do stupid things, repeatedly, because the story needs them to do so. (There is a moment where I guarantee that every single one of you will yell at the screen because someone doesn't do the thing they obviously need to do.) Fights often end because it's convenient, rather than because it's over, impossible things become possible because it's time to move to the next scene.

An example bit of script:

"You don't understand, these people are killers!"
"Yeah? Well so am I."

A line that would have felt a bit naff even in the 80s.

That said I suspect a lot of people won't care because the fighty stuff is great. Every box is ticked - prison fight, train fight, fight at great heights. Come for the thrills, and leave your brain at the door, and you'll doubtless have a good time.

Also, I have a ridiculous theory, for which I have no evidence, and which is almost certainly nonsense, but I wish to put out there anyway because I've not seen it cited anywhere else...

Spoiler:

davyK

tin_robot wrote:

@davyK - Bait's excellent. If you enjoyed it, it might be worth watching Enys Men, Mark Jenkins next film. I've reviewed it a little way back so won't re-do it here, but will warn you that it's a slightly different beast. An odd, meditative sort-of-ghost story. You can none the less very much tell it's the work of the same man.

Will check that out - cheers. I think I saw that in the BFI player while I was browsing. I picked Bait out because I remember reading about it in one of the Sunday papers a while back.

When I read a bit about the film, I learnt that it was shot on a hand cranked camera and was developed by hand. There was me thinking all that distressed footage was post production!

Dark Soldier

Rules of Attraction (2002)

Loved this film when younger. Came along when my obsession with cinema was properly beginning.

First time watching it in about 15 years and whilst aspects have not aged well, it's still fantastic. Beek is outstanding in the lead role.

Easy [9]

davyK

Enemy Indie Villeneuve film starring Jack Gyllenhaal. Man, appears at least, to have stumbled upon his doppelganger.

Surrealist notes with a genuine wtf from me at the end. Yeah. Lots to this one. Need to read around it a bit and it demands a rewatch.

Moot_Geeza

Loved that film.

davyK

I was wondering if it was a Fight Club thing going on. Fucked if I know what's going on in it.

DrewMerson

davyK

I can guess the scene but honestly the film is intriguing enough for a 2nd viewing so I don't think it's a huge spoiler since narratively it doesn't fit - at least on first view at any rate.

When I saw that scene I had a memory of seeing it before - whether that was in a clip or gif I don't know.

Minnesänger

Dark Soldier wrote:

Rules of Attraction (2002) Loved this film when younger. Came along when my obsession with cinema was properly beginning. First time watching it in about 15 years and whilst aspects have not aged well, it's still fantastic. Beek is outstanding in the lead role. Easy [9]

Yes lad.

jdanielp

Never seen RoA, but from that write-up it sounds like it could be Dawson as long as the aspects that didn't age well don't Creek too badly...

b0r1s

Open Range has become my favourite western over the years. Duvall and Costner on fine form with an early appearance from young Andor as herders coming head-to-head with the honour-less rancher.

davyK

Traffic Another film from a time when I didn't go to the cinema - our kids were very young in 2000.

Big complex film about a big complex problem. There's a lot going on in this and could easily collapse into a shambles, but it's masterfully put together and the cast is pure quality. This was probably sensational 23 years ago because it's still an excellent film.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Enemy is an amazing film. I hope more people find it after watching Dune and going through his back catalogue. Doesn't get mentioned as much as his other stuff even though I think there's an argument for it being his best film.

Also I think House was a horror movie based on a story the director's daughter wrote.
Ah found the vid that talked about it:

Raiziel

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

Enemy is an amazing film. I hope more people find it after watching Dune and going through his back catalogue. Doesn't get mentioned as much as his other stuff even though I think there's an argument for it being his best film.

I have pretty acute arachnophobia. I watched the whole film through, and handled the spider imagery throughout. But then the last scene: I got a really bad feeling about it and—I haven’t done this since I was a kid—I put my hand over my eyes right before whatever happens happens. I still haven’t plucked up the courage to face that scene.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Love all that spider imagery. Probably time for a rewatch. And maybe Arachnophobia too while I'm at it. I'm sure Eight Legged Freaks still holds up too...

73. Apollo 13
They really don't make many movies like this anymore. Earnest drama with no quippy or Sorkin like dialogue. Just a straight up story with good characters and solid filmmaking. Enjoyed watching this again.
[8]

74. The Boogeyman
I'm glad to see that Savage is good at creating scares in typical filmmaking style too. Just a shame this is otherwise a very standard hollywood format monster type movie. All the usual story tropes come up and some proper suspension of disbelief at some aspects (just turn on all the lights in the house!!!). But it gave me quite a few scares and so I had a good time.
[7]

75. The Flash
So DC can actually make a good comic book movie! Crazy stuff. Shame the lead is a dickhead in real life and so to avoid showing said dickhead all the marketing had to show pretty much all the big surprises. Could have been a fun ride otherwise. Also some really, REALLY below standard VFX throughout. There's some better looking fake humans in FFXVI. Genuinely looked early game CG at times. But the film had some really fun superhero/comic book ideas throughout and it was actually funny at times. There's a few times where they really couldn't help themselves with the fan service though. They probably shouldn't have gone there. Really.
[6]

Also shout out to the selfish couple who brought their young boy who was definitely not old enough for a 2+ hour movie at the cinema. He had a lot to say and ask about pretty much everything that happened right from the start. Way to go dickheads.

davyK

House is regular in the Criterion channel's closet videos.

djchump

Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes

Took a punt on a £1.99 rental of this on Apple TV after seeing it compared to One Cut Of The Dead and wasn’t disappointed. One Cut is a full on [9], BTI2M is a neat little [8]

RedDave2

62. The Gentlemen Guy Ritchies Movies tend to be more disappointing than not but I think this is the closest he has gotten to emulating his best (imo) movie, Snatch. The film definitely thinks its more clever than it is and the twists and turns by the end somewhat become an over-egged pudding but its still great fun, particularly scenes with McConaughey and Grant who are both in top form. [8]

63. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Now then. After re-watching Star Wars, I thought I'd revisit some other 80s classic. And this is good stuff. There's a physicality and sense of place to this movie that the Marvel Green screen cant match. More Gory and creepy than I remember, the Bond influences are also much more obvious. If we're gonna be harsh, the plotting is a bit too heavy on convenience but it still is a great adventure [8]

64. Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
After being underwhlemed by a new hope a little but seeing daughters interest, we move to Empire and while this time I enjoyed it more, she switched off around the asteroids. Seems Old Yoda is not a patch on Baby yoda. I guess we wont be watching Jedi together.

Back to this, for a movie that is so revered, nothing really happens in terms of plot within itself. Its very much setting up the third movie. The last half of the movie is just Han and co head to cloud city, luke does a workout and then follows them because he sees they are in danger. Its all basic really but I guess the appeal is all the moments to get from A to B. Hoth is an excellent opener from the Yeti attack to the base assault, the chase of the falcon is done well and Yoda is... well I remember liking the swamp scenes more as a kid. Here, he is more annoying than anything.

Then there is the finale on cloud city. Its done so well. Visaully iconic (Vadar and Luke first lighting up their light sabres is a scene you can freeze frame and it looks great) and the build up to the reveal is great.

As a movie on its own, hard to score this beyond an 8 but as a sequel and a middle point to an intended final movie it pushes to a [9]

hylian_elf

16. A Brighter Summer Day - 11 June
Epic Taiwanese movie by Edward Yang based on a true event that shocked the nation around 1960 and one that the director himself remembers from his childhood.
Coming in at around 4 hours long but not a single minute of the film felt wasted and never a dull moment. Very much a mixture of coming-of-age and identity and purpose crisis, set agaisnt the backdrop of Taiwan's political identity issues as a nation.
[9]

17. Creed III - 17 June
Meh all the way, but a couple of entertaining fights elevate it a bit.
[5]

Moot_Geeza

That'll do for Creed III. Will watch at some point. They're a bit shit but easy entertainment.

davyK

Enys Men Followup to Bait and it ups the weirdness ante to say the least. A very unsettling experience. And I say experience as this isn't structured around a narrative in any strict way. There's several ways of looking at this which seems to be a folklore ghost story - but one isn't entirely sure who the ghost or ghosts are, or, whether it's all going on in someone's head, or if they are experiencing time shifts - either as an observer , or actually being moved.

Interesting piece of film making.

poprock

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania
Utter nonsense from some good character actors. Just enough charisma on the screen to keep me watching, but what a load of rubbish otherwise.

Cos

Bang on, Pop. Seemed like a lack of any plan other than introducing the new big bad.

The Daddy

Yeah it’s poor. So was the newest Thor.

davyK

Bad Lieutenant The original Harvey Keitel version. Lowlife degenerate cop's life spirals out of control. The impact of this 30 years ago must have been quite something but it still hits hard.

In 2023 that impact is replaced with depression due to it not being surprising. Extremely well made but not exactly entertaining. I'm not sure where this sits nowadays.

hylian_elf

18. Burning - 15 June
While everyone was outside in the heat, burning, I was inside the house, watching Burning. Based on a Murakami short story, it keeps you guessing where it's all going and what will happen next, and the kind of movie that leaves you thinking about what it had to say and portray (about class, heirarchy, meaning of life etc.).
[9]

Kow

davyK wrote:

Bad Lieutenant
In 2023 that impact is replaced with depression due to it not being surprising. Extremely well made but not exactly entertaining. I'm not sure where this sits nowadays.

Probably why Werner Herzog remade it with Nicholas Cage, basically as a comedy. All the better for it too.

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