What was the last movie you saw...? Part IV

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Die Hard... stone cold awesome classic!

[Zzzptm]

I had the day off yesterday and watched two Russian WW2 films, "Come and See" and "White Tiger". I prefer original language track with subtitles, since I know enough Russian and German to limp along in case I glance away.

[Zzzptm]

The Princess Bride

Time after time, that movie stays fresh and fun. Turns out, it's also a Christmas movie, in that there are seasonal decorations evident in the kid's bedroom and on the house across the street. Who knew, huh?

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
Definitely one of the best family films ever, with some great cameos.

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Recently we watched Pixie on rental. A comedy, crime, thriller set in Ireland. Starring Olivia Cooke, Ben Hardy, Colm Meaney, Dylan Moran and Alec Baldwin.

To an extent it's a comedy of errors, three young adults (Cooke, Hardy and another but I can't work out which!) come across a bag of drugs which belong to the Irish Mafia (Meaney), the Catholic Priest Mafia (Baldwin) also get involved as the drugs (and then cash) go on the run on a road trip around Ireland.

The dialogue is quite good, but the story is unrealistic, and the death count is stupidly high!! It is quite fun though. 6/10

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I went to see Eternals in the week. The latest MCU film starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Kit Harrington and a number of actors I'm unfamiliar with playing other Eternals!

The Eternals are a group of immortal beings who came to the Earth to shape it's history and protect it from deviants. Once the deviants were defeated many centuries ago the eternals merged with humans and became annymous. Then one day the deviants come back and their leader is found dead. The gang have to get back together to find out what has happened.

I knew before I went in that this wasn't getting good reviews. It's not dreadful... but it is far from the best of the MCU films. It's biggest stars (Hayek and Jolie) are in supporting roles, and Chan (as lovely as she is) isn't lead actress material in a film like this. Many of the supporting Eternals have too little screen time to develop the character properly, but it was nice that a deaf actress played a deaf character. This film is let down by a weak, predictable plot, too many characters and a feeling that this might have worked better had we knowledge of the characters developed in earlier films! As I say, not dreadful, but perhaps a missed opportunity. 6/10

[Zzzptm]

I've ordered the Hungarian film "The Red and the White" by Miklós Jancsó. It's about WW1 Hungarian prisoners of war being drawn into the Russian Civil War. The Hungarians basically had to fight for an empire they didn't care for in a war that made no sense to them, got captured by soldiers who hated the empire they were born into, and then had to pick sides in a civil war affecting yet another empire that they didn't care for.

It's been compared to Come and See as a truly great antiwar movie. I'm looking forward to it, as it was banned in the Soviet Union.

[Zzzptm]

Last movie with the family - Ghostbusters, the 1984 original. Still funny, but it's dated as a film.


Last movie on my own - Just watched The Red and the White. It's a grim pastiche of scenes and I can see that it came from the same cinematographic school that Tarkovsky subscribed to. This is a war movie with prisoner massacres and rapes. There is no soundtrack. There is no real identification with one side or another, it's all a slow blur of violence that's very often senseless and arbitrary.

[Zzzptm]

I watched The Forgotten Battle on Netflix yesterday. EXCELLENT film, with a soundtrack that knows its place: mostly absent, which is how I think a proper war movie should be. I don't need swelling violins to punctuate a hero's wounding or death or whatever. Just show the war for what it is and let it be brutal. This one does that and also shows the impact on the civilian population during the battle for the Schelde.

Strong use of multiple story lines that interleave and excellent cinematography.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I went to see the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife film recently. Starring Paulk Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace with cameos from the Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd and Ernie Hudson.

Callie's father we discover is Egon Spengler although he deserted his family many years ago and bought a secluded farmhouse in a remote mining community. After his death, cash strapped Callie (Coon) and her kids (Wolfhard and Grace) are evicted and have to relocate to the old farm to sort out their lives. The town though is experienceing unexplained earthquakes which has attracted the attention of Grooberson (Rudd) a seizmologist. Shortly thereafter the kids find Spenglers hidden workshop and the ECTO-1 Ghostbusters car, and manage to release an entity stored in a trap.

This is a reboot of the origiinal films and completely ignores the events in the 2016 reboot. It's a little slow to start with, basically the family moving into the farmhouse, meeting people and making friends. It's the second half of the film where the action kicks off and the film comes to life. A pretty good film but not setting any new standards. 7.5/10

[Thelemech]

This was OK plot wise but where this film really shines is the FX department. Not the best Transformers movie but still entertaining. 6/10

[Zzzptm]

I went to see the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife film recently. Starring Paulk Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace with cameos from the Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd and Ernie Hudson.

Callie's father we discover is Egon Spengler although he deserted his family many years ago and bought a secluded farmhouse in a remote mining community. After his death, cash strapped Callie (Coon) and her kids (Wolfhard and Grace) are evicted and have to relocate to the old farm to sort out their lives. The town though is experienceing unexplained earthquakes which has attracted the attention of Grooberson (Rudd) a seizmologist. Shortly thereafter the kids find Spenglers hidden workshop and the ECTO-1 Ghostbusters car, and manage to release an entity stored in a trap.

This is a reboot of the origiinal films and completely ignores the events in the 2016 reboot. It's a little slow to start with, basically the family moving into the farmhouse, meeting people and making friends. It's the second half of the film where the action kicks off and the film comes to life. A pretty good film but not setting any new standards. 7.5/10

I passed on it, but my kids really enjoyed the film.

[Zzzptm]

I watched Vendetta on HBOMax just now. It is a film based on the events surrounding the lynching of 11 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in the early 1900s. It's a complicated piece, for sure.

[Zzzptm]

A Christmas Story

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

We went to see Spider-Man: No Way Home yesterday. Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Marisa Tomie, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon and JK Simmons... plus Spoilers:

: show

Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Alfred Molina, Wilem DaFoe, Jamie Foxx, Rhys Ifans and Thomas Hayden Church reprising their Spider-man / villain roles from previous iterations of the franchise

!

After having his identity revealed by J Jonah Jameson (Simmons) at the end of the previous film, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Holland) finds that the fame and abuse becomes intrusive, but when it affects his and his friends (MJ - Zendaya & Ned - Batalon) admissions to university he feels he has to do something about it. He visits Dr Strange (Cumberbatch) to see if he can alter everyones memories to forget him... partway through the process Parker realises thet he still wants his close friends and family to remember him... this change causes problems with the space time continuum and leads to strange appearances.

I've never been the biggest fan of Spider-Man over the years but I think it's an okay franchise. Of the 3 standalone films with Holland I think this is probably the best (although I find his appearances in the Avengers films to be better). The story here is a little confusing as the time streams get mixed up. The story is okay, the effects are good but overall I'm only ranking this as 18 out the 27 MCU films. 7.5/10

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Of note: After the slump in the film industry caused by Covid-19, the biggest opening weekend of the year in the US/Canada was Venom 2 (who has a mid-credit scene here) with $90m... after it's opening day Spider-man: No Way Home had achieved $121m on what will probably end up being a $200m+ opening weekend, the sort of figures which the biggest blockbusters were getting pre-pandemic, and way bigger than Tom Holland's previous Spider-Man films. This isn't the end of the slump in films but probably shows that there is a hunger for big screen films that streaming services can never replace.

EDIT: It's estimates come Sunday is $253m!! That's the 3rd biggest US/Canada opening of all time only bettered by Avengers: Infinity War ($257m) and Avengers: Endgame ($357m)... both of which Spider-Man also makes an appearance!

[Zzzptm]

^ Good point on how people still want the big screen experience for the big screen blockbusters. Art house flicks have probably shifted permanently to streaming, but the big SFX, sci-fi, fantasy, superhero movies will keep a place on the big screens.

[Thelemech]

This movie was so cringe - I could barely stand to watch it. This has got to be one of the most unfunny sequels that I have ever seen. Garbage - period. 2.5/10