list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Jackie

Eagerly expecting to dislike this one and brush-off Natalie Portman's portrayal of a beloved FLOTUS as trivial and self-serving, I was surprised at Portman's commitment to the role, her uncanny mimicry of Jacqueline Kennedy's throaty, sensual voice, and the gloomy, disturbed atmosphere achieved as she recalls her time in the White House.   Mica Levi's queasy, elastic score is haunting as we are taken through the excruciating days just after the murder of JFK and his death in her lap as they rode through Dallas, and Billy Crudup excellent as the interviewer trying to pry an account from a dark and disoriented Jackie.   A true story that's truth is eternally unknowable and largely speculative, Jackie doesn't flinch in its depiction of a life gone from magisterial to mundane in a few seconds.   Plus a poignant appearance by John Hurt in the last film released before he died.




Edited by Atavachron - March 09 2017 at 02:45

Solace

Residing somewhere between The Dead Zone and Hearts in Atlantis, psychic Anthony Hopkins helps the police track down a cunning serial killer.   Though lacking the production and scoring of the features Hopkins normally appears in, Solace turns a fairly lackluster script into something more by way of Hopkins' world-weary and weathered performance and a good sense of building tension.

Beauty and the Beast Live Action: OK before you all jump all over me I am a 14 year old girl and I really wanted to see it and it was really really good. The story stuck pretty close to the Disney animated version with some really awesome addition including some really cool new songs. Emma Watson was really good a Belle, but the guy who stole the show was Josh Gad as LeFou. He was fantastic in every way.

I actually took a trip out to the local cinema to watch a filum... though I should point out that our local cinema, while boasting two screens, is a decrepit flea pit with a total staff of three (on a busy night), one of whom is the owner who commutes down from London each day to issue tickets and collect the daily takings. So this is a far-cry from the modern multiplex experience of gallon buckets of popcorn and trays of nachos smothered in taste-free cheese sauce accompanied by proportionately over-sized soft drinks cups that comprise of several litres of crushed ice flavoured with a dribble of saccharine-flavoured carbonated syrup, 3D goggles and full immersion Dolby surround sound. No, here you buy an overpriced can of Sprite (served at room temperature) from the owner/operator while smuggling in a packet of toffees purchased from the convenience store two blocks down. The filum we intended to see was being shown in what is euphemistically called "Screen 2", though could more accurately be described as a single-bed sized bed-sheet hung on the wall of darkened room that is about the size of an average classroom in a village school (cira 1947). So we paid for our tickets and took our seats, expecting the usual run of trailers and adverts before the main feature started but the second we sat down (having complete choice of where to sit as we were the only two patrons present), an out of focus image of the BBFC certification appeared on the screen - leaving me uncertain whether to wear my distance (driving) glasses or reading glasses (both of which I'd left at home) - and without further warning the film promptly began...


Edited by Dean - April 02 2017 at 22:22

The Founder

Highly satisfying and slightly surreal story of McDonald's creator Ray Kroc, his disastrous life as a milkshake-machine salesman in 1954, and his discovery of a little California drive-in with a big gold 'M' outside.   Michael Keaton is terrific as the haggard Kroc, and Offerman & Lynch are perfect as McDonald's owners.   One of the best movies of 2016.

Logan

Good solid road picture with an aging and weary Wolverine escorting the ailing Professor X and a mysterious young girl across the American badlands while pursued by bad guys.   Nothing too special but full of grit and grist and satisfying in all the right ways, Logan is a different kind of X-Men flick.

Mine

Military drama high on suspense has a lone marine having to survive the desert among nasty shamals, a busted GPS, roaming Berbers, unsympathetic commanders, and stuck in place by a half-tripped ordinance while he waits for help.

Life

High-budgeted science fact/fiction about the crew of the International Space Station who discover a new microscopic life form that starts to grow to dangerous proportions.   By turns talky, entertaining, geeky, plausible and improbable, Life attempts a sort of reimagining of Alien 's brand of body horror.




Edited by Atavachron - June 20 2017 at 23:33

Eight Days a Week

Ron Howard's slightly anemic but well-documented slice of the early 1960s and how the Liverpudlian rock stars helped to change popular culture, tastes and attitudes.   The movie is filled with previously ignored footage and newly shot interviews with Paul & Ringo, but nothing much new is revealed and Eight Days a Week is more American-based fan film than serious group biopic.

The Car

In one of the most underrated drive-in schlock horror pictures of the 1970s, James Brolin leads a Mayberry-like small town against a homicidal and seemingly driver-less Lincoln Continental as it blasts down desert highways, runs over hitchhikers, plows into women & children and plagues a community with Biblical retribution.   Sometimes called 'Jaws on the road', The Car is much more than just a shark with wheels and features great stunts, innovative driving, and, in hindsight, is one of the scariest B-movies of the era.