list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Terminator Genisys

Tragically bad number five in the franchise has substandard script with no affection for the original, dopey actors, and cringe-causing moments throughout.   Just no.

Turns out Señor Spielbergo's first film is basically a horror/slasher twist on a 1970s car chase movie in the Vanishing Point vein. Totally different territory from both the mainstream action blockbusters, kid-friendly science-fiction adventures and serious historical dramas he's known for later. Doesn't even have the old-fashioned adventure movie leanings of Jaws.

This is very obviously made on a low budget, but it makes good use of the Southwestern United States' scenery in the cinematography and marries those two genres very seamlessly. The last half hour of this one constitutes one of the best extended car chases I've ever seen, especially in light of how new that kind of filming from inside and on cameras mounted on the vehicles was in the early 1970s.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 15 2015 at 15:39

Swedish documentary about people who investigate UFO sightings in their spare time. The contents are half split between sociological and folkloristic insight into what kind of person is driven to that stuff as well as their long-planned attempt to investigate a lake where a mysterious rocket landed in the early 1980s (complete with electromagnetic scanning equipment, sonar etc) which from the witness description sounds like it might have been an early experimental drone. It's very sober for UFO documentaries, while also having a clear sense of good natured humour, avoiding the sensationalism typical of the format. Instead, its focus is on figuring out the role the entire UFO mythology plays in modern culture.

we saw "Kafka" featuring Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell, Sir Alec Guinness, Ian Holm, Jeroen Krabbé and Armin Müller-Stahl. interesting fictional movie about Kafka with many accurate biographical details but with an interesting twist: Kafka getting into kafkaesque situations

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Based on the comic book and in the spirit of what the filmmakers call "Old-school spy films; Y'know, something fun", Kingsman delivers most of what it intends.   Director Matthew Vaughn thought Casino Royale too serious and wanted to recreate the spirit of the 1960s Cold War mentality (The Man from UNCLE also attempted this with lesser results).   Colin Firth is terrific as always and the plotting runs nicely though the script is imperfect with an awkward Taron Egerton portraying Firth's trainee and a ridiculous, puerile performance from Sam Jackson as an arch villain.

Boy howdy is this literally one strange trip, way more abstract and a deliberate mind-bender than the other films of Godard I've seen. It starts out as a road trip comedy about a couple on vacation in the country, then an armed revolution breaks out the same time as they drive away... and the whole film seems to run on Buñuel/Felliniesque surrealist dream logic of the type that Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch must have taken notes to. It's very well made and well thought out, but since my familiarity with French politics in the 1960s are rather superficial I wager a lot of the satirical content goes straight over my head.

It's certainly not a film one forgets easily though!

Don't know about better, it didn't get much better than Donald Pleasence or Charles Gray, and Waltz is pretty over the top.   But yeah, I'd rather have original Fleming product than anything else.
 

Oh he's very good and has some decent screen time (wouldn't want too much Blowie).  He's just a bit twee.

^ Gifted artists often are.

I saw "Kafka" in China with bits and pieces spliced out to keep it in line with Party thought - it made no sense but it was fun.  Then I saw it in its entirety a few weeks back.  Horribly self-conscious and bleak....too Kafka even for Kafka (at least Kafka kept the ideal of the human spirit alive and rising above the injustices of politics, relationships and life in general).  I liked the Chinese version better.