list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

I find myself once again watching one of the finest productions to come out of BBC.

(NOT the American version.)

Bob Hoskins should have won an award for this. Simply brilliant acting by all -Gemma Craven, the ubiquitous Freddie Jones, and Kenneth Coolley, a superb actor who never got as many roles as he deserved.

This quite long miniseries has everything I usually HATE: its a musical. Its all about big band/40/50s vocoder-type crooner music.

Still its one of my fav series ever.


I cant really put my finger on what elevates this to an altogether other level.
One of the things certainly is the thread of profound sadness that runs through the story (of Arthur,a travelling salesman selling sheet-music from town to town at the tail-end of the sheetmusic era when grammophones were just coming in to put an end to people entertaining themselves.)
You have this very sad story of a man passionate about popular music and passionate for sex, but married to an over-shy, sex-abhorring wife. And yet this sadness is continually broken/juxtaposed by the musical sections (his fantasies) which ,like the music of the time, was ever stupidly peppy/cheerful.

Basically about human nature and the life-asserting strength of music.

Simply outstanding.

Kingsman: Secret Service - we caught a late nite movie, slim pickings but we decided on this...  damn haha!  I thought this was going to be some YA version of Spykids, I certainly wasn't expecting this, violent and unapologetic with a scathing sense of humor, similar in nature to those Kick-Ass movies, this was basically a big-budget exploitative homage (and/or spoof) on 007 and similar spy flicks (Bondsploitation!),  probably the most I've enjoyed watching Samuel L Jackson in a long while... put me down for wanting a sequel - 7/10


Edited by mithrandir - February 23 2015 at 04:32

I'm surprised Snowpiercer didn't make it to the boxoffice, at least it didn't around these parts, I barely started hearing about it going over end of the year lists

And the Maze Runner ending was underwhelming but I did like the first 2/3rds, I have the audiobooks DLed, I'll listen to them one of these days, but thats probably for a different thread

anyhow, tonight's viewing: Gone Girl: its nice entering a movie without knowing much about it, this turned out to be a great movie with a lot of guessing and twists as the movie played out, some of it became a little cartoony midway on but I think that might have been the desired effect, without spoiling I will say I REALLY liked the outcome, which could have gone a few ways but as it stands, loved it, haha!  - 8.5/10

mithrandir wrote: Snowpiercer - good and somewhat unique scifi/action romp, not as heavy handed with 'muh social message' as it first implies, at least I didn't think so, the cinematography and narrow boxcar setting is pretty cool too, would have liked to have seen more the function and inner workings of this train civilization as some of it breezes by leaving holes that I wish were 'splained a bit better, on a personal preference I kind of wish they did something a bit different with the ending, but I'll say no more: 7/10

The Pact (2012) Directed by Nicholas McCarthy

As decent as anything routinely described as 'supernatural horror' could ever credibly approach without recourse to yet another spurious cinema genre for those immersed in cataloging their own misshapen faeces by proxy.
Their mother might have been a bit of a sadistic bitch but she was a kitten onslaught compared to her hitherto unknown brother 'Charles' the so-called 'Judas' serial killer. The heroine stabs him with a lethal coat-hanger and shoots him squarely in the head with a police revolver yet there is a sequel: Just when you thought it was safe to hang up your pants

Despite my habitual withering scorn this is worth seeing

Cristi wrote: Walton Street wrote: A View To a Kill   - despite Walken being a great villain, the bombastic presence of Grace Jones, and a fun performance by Patrick MacNee (the original Avenger) this movie is pretty damn bad. The Aha theme is put to good use as a love theme in the score by John Barry but it's a bad film all around. As lovely as Tanya Roberts is - she was the worst "Bond girl" of all time. For the first time in my many Bond cycle viewings - I'm not enjoying the Roger Moore films as a whole. I'm afraid the Daniel Craig reboot has raised the bar so high the other films are a bit of an embarrassment in comparison. The theme is Duran Duran, A-ha did it for Living Daylights

A View To a Kill

Watched Whiplash tonight.

ExittheLemming wrote: American Mary - Directors: Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska (2012) Featuring themselves as the talentless self publicists a.k.a. 'The Demon Twins of Berlin' who offer occult tattoos, black lipstick and Hanna Barbera lesbianism by way of  'feminist conviction' (yep, they should do time for this) Penniless FEMALE medical student (read GOOD) is raped by sexually deviant MALE lecturer (genuinely BAD) at a surgeon's party which depicts anyone in the surgeon's guild with external genitals (read BAD) to be closet Satanists, yet those whom Ms Mason indulges with horn implants are merely expressing their hitherto thwarted inner selves (read GOOD) Retribution ensues. Rapist is subjected to every form of body modification known to man (read BAD but also 'right on sister' GOOD) under the apprentice scalpel bequeathed by the Solonas S.C.U.M technique while mentally deranged and psychotic FEMALE criminal (read GOOD) is depicted as a refreshingly strong feminine role model. For 20 minutes Katharine Isabelle is a sympathetic character struggling to make ends meet like every other aspirant student in the world. Thereafter you just don't care about anyone in the entire movie and can only wish that the considerable body count could have actually been higher by including the directors and thus qualifying this pile of hormonal splatter as a vicarious snuff movie. If you're dumb enough to enjoy this you really don't have your problems to seek.

There's a mental image I'd happily unimagine, if that were possible.