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

[Zzzptm]

Thanks for the recommendation, Vyn, enjoyed that much.

Slow day yesterday since I had it off and I discovered that Zulu (1964) was free to watch on YouTube.

So I watched it! It's the 70mm version, great for those wide screens we all seem to have nowadays.

It has inaccuracies, for better filmic storytelling no doubt, chief of which is the "singing contest" set of scenes in the film. But, in including them, we get a different sort of war movie. Those scenes are the keystone of the film, and they've held up with both British and Zulu audiences over the years.

The film also marks a significant milestone in Michael Caine's career, his breakout leading role.

Some slow parts at the start, but the film delivers. I give it nine out of ten pith helmets.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I watched a couple of films over the weekend...

Strange World

A Disney animation which has probably been their floppiest flop ever! Starring the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Liu.

It starts off with Jaeder and Searcher (Quaid and Gyllenhaal's father and son) off on an expedition. Searcher finds a plant that produces energy but his dad is more interested in crossing the mountains. 25 years later and Searcher has provided energy to the community through the plant he has discovered and has become a farmer with a family of his own.

The plants stop working and Searcher and his son go off to find out why the plants don't work anymore. This leads them to exploring deeper into a strange world where he runs into his dad still trying to cross the mountains.

I can understand why this flopped badly, while it's not dreadful its target audience isn't 5-15 year old kids, it's not really their parents either. You don't really know what's going on until the last 10 minutes. Searchers son turns out to be gay, but this is only mentioned once and literally has no bearing on the story! Once you realise what's going on it sort picks up but by then most will have turned it off. 5/10

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The Banshees of Inisherin

Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri) returns with another awards worthy film. Set in a remote community in Ireland it stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

Padraig (Farrell) and Colm (Gleeson) have been best friends for years. Then Colm decides he doesn't want to be friends with Padraig anymore. Padraig -- who is a little simple -- can't understand this and despite the fact that Colm clearly doesn't want anymore to do with him, Padraig can't help but pester him.

What starts out as a gentle comedy / drama starts to turn very dark as the film progresses and Colm gets increasingly frustrated with Padraig.

This is a very good film, not on a par with 3 Billboards, but McDonagh seems to bring the best out in people, you wouldn't have expected Farrell to be in the running for an Oscar (he won't win, but still!). A quirky story with black humour is the sort of thing I love! 9/10

[Zzzptm]

^ I'm interested in the Banshees film, looks tasty.


I watched last night another Victorian-era war movie, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)

It's more than a war movie, in that through the first half there's a constant dichotomy between the law for the rich and the law for the poor. Class stratification at every brutal turn, a real antidote for Downton Abbey-style nostalgia. Much as we'd all want a kind and sensitive Lord Grantham running the show, it's Lord Cardigan that walks out of the histories and into the film and who reminds us how sheer bloody-mindedness was the order of the day through the whole of the period. A few bits of history got shuffled around for the benefit of the story, but we all know the outcome: The Crimean War was a senseless war of honor that all but bankrupted Russia and which only emboldened other European nations to look at having a whack at nations with less technology and industry than they had.

Acting-wise, it's got some good turns from David Hemmings and others, but it's not as electrifying a story as was Zulu. But in terms of showing war mostly through things other than battle, it approaches Catch-22 in how it depicts the violence a nation does to itself in order to wage war. It's a good one, and free on YouTube. I give it 7.5 out of 10 hussars.

[Charger]

VENOM Let There Be Carnage


The not quite so peaceful co-existence between Eddie Brock and Venom gets a major bump in the road and a dangerous serial killer gets his own symbiote after biting Eddie and breaks out of prison to find his long lost love. Much carnage and comedy ensues.

Tom Hardy shines as Eddie Brock and Woody Harrelson is solid as Cletus Kasady aka Carnage.

But the real treat of the movie for sure is the comedy. It is just enough but not over powering and ridiculously overly stupid as it is in Deadpool. And it gives away to the action flawlessly and the action is great.

Another thing that this movie has going for it is the length. Clocking in at only 1h 37minutes it's refreshingly short for a superhero movie. It's nice compact piece of fun without any dull moments.

The only bad thing in the movie is Michelle Williams who just can't stop being annoying but luckily she isn't so prominent here as she was in the first part.

All in all I'd say this one is better than the first one and surely THE best Sony Marvel movie out there.


*  *  *  *

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
Both Venom films are excellent.

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Just catching up on a couple of recent visits to the cinema:

Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

The 3rd film in the MCU Ant Man sub-franchise. Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnathan Majors, Kathryn Newton and Corey Stoll, with a cameo from Bill Murray.

Ant Man, The Wasp, Hank, Janet and Cassie have a mishap which drags them to the Quantum Realm, they find strange creatures and embark on a journey that goes beyond what they thought was possible, having to defeat a new foe along the way.

The MCU has sort of lost it's way since Avengers Endgame, whilst the films have been pretty good they don't really have a over arching story which leads to a climax at the end of Part 4. Individually, I have liked each film (well Eternals wasn't so great), but I still haven't seen Black Panther 2 and I don't feel any great urge to see it.

Anyway, Ant Man 3 is fine, doesn't push any boundaries and Pfeiffer still looks great! 6.5/10

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

The latest attempt to bring the popular table top game to the big screen. This time starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Rege-Jean Page, Hugh Grant, Chloe Colman and Daisy Head.

It starts off with Edgin (Pine, a bard) and Holga (Rodriguez, a barbarian) in prison after a failed heist on a tower where only Forge (Grant, a thief) manages to escape capture with a valuable treasure. After two years Edgin and Holga escape from prison only to discover that Forge is now the local Lord with the help of the sorceress Sophina (Head) and has Edgin's daughter Kira (Coleman) in his custody. In order to get his daughter and the treasure back which can bring Edgin's dead wife back they have to undertake a series of tasks. They recruit Simon (Smith) an unreliable wizard and Doric (Lillis) a druid/thief, and along the way they encounter a Paladin called Xenk (Page).

You do not need to have played the game to like this film. It is quite true to the game but only in passing. The film is funny but it is not as if they treated the film like a spoof. The action is great and visuals are fine (it's not like they had Disney / Cameron money to through at them!). The leads do a fine job, a couple of the supporting cast are a little flimsy, but not jarringly so. The graveyard scene is really funny and is a nod to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One or two plot points are shallow or formulaic, but again a minor quibble. 8.5/10

[Charger]

What's been strange here to see is all the very positive critic reviews for D&D... 4 stars all around...them raving about the movie...never thought to see that...

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
What's more, those who play the game are very happy with the film... and that's not an easy achievement.

There were some attempts to convert the game to the big screen in the noughties which were universally panned but were made on a shoestring. This has a budget which means some of the creatures actually look like what they are supposed to be. Also, I believe the earlier films took themselves far too seriously.

[Zzzptm]

Just saw The French Dispatch.

WOW, 9.5/10.

Disclaimer: I really love Wes Anderson films. While disappointed with Island of Dogs, I have enjoyed the rest of his work. This is one of those works.

Several stories knitted together - it's really a collection of short films with some unifying threads, but nothing overall keeping it all together. Nevertheless, the stories themselves are fascinating, original, and deeply human. Acting is exquisite and the set designs totally on point. It's a movie to probe the mind, to get it to ponder things, and I consider that an excellent thing. No preaching at me - rather, it takes life as it is and asks questions of us all in how we experience it.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
I didn't get to see it in cinemas, and it's been conspicuous by its absence on streaming services / DVD. Where did you see it?

I didn't mind Isle of Dogs... it's The Life Aquatic which I didn't particularly care for.

Anderson's new film (Asteroid City) out this summer has an insane cast in addition to his usual troupe. He's added Tom Hanks, Margo Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Scarlet Johansson.

[Zzzptm]

I saw The French Dispatch on Hulu, I think.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
I don't think we have Hulu in the UK, they might have partnered with someone else (I could be wrong!).

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We saw Air at the weekend, the story of Nike's rise in the early 80s when they secured the support of Michael Jordan. The film stars Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck (who also directed) and Viola Davis (as suggested by Jordan himself).

A drama with comedic elements, it shows how Nike lured Jordan to use their shoes rather than the competitors. It's done in a straightforward manner with little in the way of surprises. It's an okay film, the performances are fine, but there's nothing to extraordinary about the film. 6/10

[Charger]

Hulu is Disney+ in Europe

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Slightly unexpected, but the rental company have just dispatched The French Dispatch (BluRay)... despite being unavailable!!

[Zzzptm]

Slightly unexpected, but the rental company have just dispatched The French Dispatch (BluRay)... despite being unavailable!!

Go you!

[Charger]

The DaVinci Code

Professor Robert Langdon is called upon a strange murder scene of a museum curator where he soon learns that he is infact a suspect in the murder which leads into a wild cat and mouse game to follow clues in order to discover not only the truth about the murder but the truth about The Templar Knights and the Holy Grail.

The story goes quite wild mixing fact and fiction and religion and myth. Much of which can be just as much true as not. But that I guess is the point.
There are few obvious little plot holes and some quite big leaps (of faith if you will) but the thing about The Last Supper however seems quite legit....or at least in the realm of possibilities.

Tom Hanks is a great choice for the role of Langdon as he has that charisma, Audrey Tautou actually doesn't suck as Sophie Neveu which is a bit of a surprise to all I would imagine.
Ian McKellen is as great as always.

Sadly the plot is perhaps bit too predictable and the identity of the big baddie is quite easily deduced very early on as well as the Big Reveal of the end...but all in all considering the movie lasted over 2 hour and 45 minutes it was quite entertaining and best of all it did not seem that long at all.

*  *  *  ½


Angels And Demons

Professor Robert Langdon is called into the vatican after the death of the pope and the kidnapping of four cardinals that might be his successors. It is believed that the ancient secret society Illuminati is behind it and tries to bring down the church in revenge of ancient atrocities, by using stolen anti matter.

Again Langdon must decipher old clues to try and catch the ones responsible.

This time the plot is bit less predictable although it does not require Sherlock Holmes level deduction powers to figure out way before the climax. But the plot is more grounded this time (minus the anti matter part ofcourse) and showcases the flaws of the catholic church quite well.

Tom Hanks is again good in the lead and Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard and especially Armin Muller-Stahl are all great in their roles. Ayelet Zurer's scientist lady is rather useless and seems out of place most of the time.

This was bit shorter and had more action but it still felt bit longer for some reason...still quite entertaining and again the over 2 hours and 15 minutes went by rapidly.

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