#261

Yeah thought the song with the lads chopping wood was great too, v atmospheric.

Fuck me though, it’s amazing how much attitudes have changed.

#262

County Lines is a tough watch but I’m not sure it captures the realism of things too well, especially how the kid gets involved with things, and it seems to shy away from things a bit. You don’t really get to see much of the main characters journey into things

#263

Recently watched:

The Driver - Cop Bruce Dern chases getaway driver Ryan O’Neal. Brilliant Walter Hill film that I hadn’t seen before. Thanks to @EVI for the heads up. Great film. 8/10.

Punishment Park - 1970s mockumentary drama film of a not too difficult to imagine dystopian USA where people deemed anti-war or anti-patriotic are given the choice between 20 years in prison or three days in a part of the desert called Punishment Park where they’re hunted by the authorities. Unfortunately as relevant now as it was when it was made. Thanks to @TKC for the heads up for this one. 8/10.

Anti-Life - The world is dying so people leave for a new world on a spaceship but there’s an alien parasite on board. Bruce Willis, Thomas Jane and some actors who I think I’ve seen somewhere try to fight back. The film starts off shit and then suddenly gets a lot worse. Crap film.
Spoiler: The alien parasite can be killed using concentrated bleach. 2/10.

Come As Your Are - Comedy-drama where Grant Rosenmeyer and Hayden Szeto are wheelchair users and Ravi Patel is visually impaired. Together they go on a road trip with Gabourey Sidibe as a nurse/driver
from Chicago to Montreal to visit a brothel that caters for their needs.

A remake of a 2011 Belgian film called Hasta La Vista apparently. I hadn’t heard of that before.

An excellent comedy-drama that’s not purile and achieves its aims; it make you laugh, plucks at your heartstrings and is a great feel good buddy road film. Worth seeking out. 8/10.

Promising Young Woman - I really loved this. I found the horrible events, the injustices and Carey Mulligan not being able nor wanting to move on after the rape and death of her friend juxtapositioned (sorry, I usually hate that term) against the bright and breezy pastel-y colours used in the sets and the constant sunny weather in the film made the nastiness almost more nasty for me.

Rape culture in schools in the news currently and Brett Kavanaugh and his apologists were in the front of my mind whilst watching this.

Mulligan was absolutely brilliant in this and had a great support cast.

At first I was in two minds whether I liked the ending or not.

Spoiler: Ideally I would have liked her to have sliced up everyone involved in her friend’s rape. I guess the character knew that that band of rapists would stick together no matter what and she was right; she knew exactly how it would play out before she went to the bachelor party.

I hope it wins at least one of the major Oscars it’s nominated for.

A brilliant film for me. 8.5/10.

2 Likes
#264

Definitely adds to the already-great Witness, I reckon.

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#265

Hasta La Vista is brilliant too. I wrote about it on one of these threads last year I think. It’s one of those films that you know exactly what’s coming but you still laugh regardless.

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#266

Oleg - didn’t intend to watch a double bill of young men trapped under the screws of an older “friend” who turns out to be a horrible criminal, but thought this was a lot better than County Lines. The story seemed far more realistic and you really get a sense of the impossible situation Oleg finds himself in. Bit baffled by reviews claiming it has a blackly comic streak, I didn’t get that in the slightest.

2 Likes
#267

Caddyshack - Not for me, some decent gags but nah 2/5

Nobody - Just a bit of fun 3/5

You Can Not Kill David Arquette - A riotously fun documentary about Arquette getting back into pro wrestling. 4/5

Gasman (1998) - exactly what you’d expect from an early Lynne Ramsay short 4/5

1 Like
#268

I really enjoyed the David Arquette documentary. He has some personal issues no doubt but at least seems to be having fun currently.

1 Like
#269

An episode of the upcoming new series of Dark Side Of The Ring is about Nick Cage (with David Arquette as a talking head) so might be a nice epilogue to the doc.

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#270

I think there were some definitely blackly funny moments

Like the whole section with the woman he meets, dancing his head off in the club, is kind of blackly funny. The collision with the deer. Even his whole relationship with the bad guy teeters on the absurd.

Thinking about it now it could almost be called Kafka-esque; that border between bleakness and absurdity that it teeters on so frequently.

Really “enjoyed” it, reminded me a bit of the Dardennes and Gerald Kargl’s Angst, with the claustrophobic camera work.

#271

I saw the dance scene as finally him having a release from his horrible life and the euphoria taking over. I dunno, it just all seemed so bleak , I didn’t get that sense of it myself but I agree, good film

#272

Wanna watch this but can only find it in shite quality

Any wizards find a decent HD version?

aka Gukoroku and Traces of Sin

#273

Recently watched:

The Role Models - Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott comedy. It’s the type of comedy you’d expect and get, but it’s a bit average. Good support cast including Elizabeth Banks but she’s not given enough screen time. 5/10.

Red Moon Tide - Spanish (very) minimalist horror. Fisherman Rubio disappears and the local community tells the story of him. There’s no dialogue and the shots are frozen shots of people who’s words and thoughts are narrated on screen. Maybe I’m a philistine but it was an Emperor’s New Clothes for me. I can appreciate a good concept but I just didn’t find it entertaining or engaging, just very boring. 3/10.

Kill 'Em All - Silly action film. Probably shit if watched sober but it’s good after midnight after too many cans. 6.5/10.

The Battle Of Algiers - Hadn’t seen this before. Impressively shot and the film shows perspectives of both FLN and the French. Certainly a very good film and I can see it’s an important piece of film making but for whatever reason it didn’t grip me completely. 7.5/10.

To The Stars - Set in a sleepy town in 60s Oklahoma, self-confident and kind Liana Liberato starts at a new school and befriends Kara Heyward who’s shy. The story follows their friendship and moves on and includes the attitudes and beliefs of people/arseholes who live in 60s Oklahoma. I don’t want to give any plot away. I liked it’s slow pace and didn’t suffer despite the slow unravelling of the story. Good film. 7.5/10.

#274

Promising Young Woman is a real oddity. Really like the cast who all do good performances, but that script… the tone… the messages… the characters… I was not prepared to hate it this much.

3 Likes
#275

I mean this claims to be BluRay

(I can’t seem to find any evidence of ‘Record of Follies’ in Google so I’m unsure about that.)

#276

Watched The Man Who Fell To Earth this week. Didn’t enjoy it much. Just seemed to consist of David Bowie driving around in a big blue car, going to meetings and getting a nosebleed/fainting in lifts over and over again. Whenever it got too boring they’d put in a sex scene or a weird alien sequence.

Think Nicolas Roeg just isn’t for me. Watched Performance years back and hated it.

Did enjoy the bit where David Bowie threw biscuits everywhere though.

3 Likes
#277

Never seen man who fell to earth or performance- but Don’t Look Now is decent

2 Likes
#278

Yes, I’ve heard that’s a good film.

#279

Squandered posted a good substack piece about the film that had a pretty strong critique a few posts above that articulated a lot of what I disliked about the movie

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#280

Agree on The Man Who Fell To Earth, I was bored by Walkabout too

Did love Performance though

1 Like